May 25, 2023: He Sentenced Stewart Rhodes to 18 Years.

DOCUMENTED

Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C.

Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building. Voice of America. U.S. government work.

On May 25, 2023, Mehta sentenced Elmer Stewart Rhodes III to 18 years in prison on the seditious-conspiracy conviction in United States v. Rhodes, 22-cr-00015 (APM). Contemporary Associated Press reporting recorded the term as the longest January 6 sentence to that date and stated Kelly Meggs received 12 years the same week. A sentence is a judgment in that criminal case. It is not a pardon and it is not a later dismissal.

President Trump later commuted the prison terms of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers defendants who had not received pardons. Mehta’s August 4, 2026, opinion recites that sequence and then dismisses the indictment. Those later events are separate posts. They do not rewrite the 2023 sentence as if it never issued.

Sources

Associated Press. “Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 attack.” (reporting). apnews.com

Mehta, J. Memorandum Opinion and Order, United States v. Rhodes (Aug. 4, 2026) (later history of the same caption). storage.courtlistener.com

Opinion

The following is commentary by this site. It is not a finding of fact and not a legal conclusion.

Compiler take

Eighteen years. He called the shot. Then the second term commuted the time and the Justice Department asked him to wipe the indictment. He said he had to. That is the arc. Do not skip the middle.