A Gloucester County man freed from prison in the wave of President Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons last week was serving a separate, longer term for possessing ammunition as a convicted felon, records show.
Peter Krill, 56, of Sewell in Mantua Township, was sentenced in February 2024 to nine months in prison for pushing through police lines at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The case, like all from the Jan. 6 investigation, was handled by federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C.
However, in the summer of 2024, Krill pleaded guilty to possessing ammunition by a convicted felon in federal court in New Jersey, stemming from the eight firearms the FBI seized when they arrested him at his home in 2022 for Jan. 6 crimes.
In that case, a judge sentenced Krill in November 2024 to 46 months in prison, just shy of four years, and said the term would run concurrent to the Washington case.
It’s unclear how federal authorities were able to release Krill after his Jan. 6 case was pardoned if he had at least two or more years to serve in the ammunition case. Krill was serving his time at the federal prison at Fort Dix.
Trump’s mass pardons directed the U.S. Attorney General to pardon to “all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” and if they are in prison to release them immediately.
The federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that, “Mr. Krill was identified among a list of defendants to which the Pardons would apply.”
“Our interpretation is if they were on our list and were in prison, they were to be released,” a prisons spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to answer questions about Krill’s ammunition case.
Before the pardons, Krill’s release date on the federal prisons website was estimated to be in early 2028.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey, which struck a plea bargain with Krill in the ammunition case, also declined to comment.
Krill’s public defender, who represented him in both cases, declined comment as well.
Federal prosecutors in court documents say Krill had eight firearms at his home – one which was a rifle – and none had required serial numbers. He also had 10 boxes of ammunition comprising over 5,000 bullets and nine loaded pistol cartridges.
Krill is prohibited from owning or possession firearms due to a 2006 robbery conviction and prison sentence, and when the FBI arrested him at hie home, he admitted the weapons were his and he knew he could not have the weaponry. He also said he was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In a letter to the judge in his Washington case, he said he regretted his presence at the Capitol that day and had turned his life around in the past decade and was sober and in recovery.
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Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com
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