Hector Vargas Santos thought a presidential pardon would wipe his slate clean—and maybe even his wallet. But when the former U.S. Marine tried to claw back the money he paid in fines and restitution after his conviction in the Capitol riot, a federal judge made clear that forgiveness doesn’t come with a refund.
Santos, 29, of Jersey City, New Jersey, had hoped to recover more than $2,000 in payments made before he was pardoned by President Donald Trump. His case was among more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants who received clemency after Trump returned to office in January.
However, in a nine-page ruling issued last Friday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss sent the defendant packing with a legal precedent established 148 years ago.
“As the Supreme Court explained in Knote… once a conviction has been ‘established by judicial proceedings,’ any penalties imposed are ‘presumed to have been rightfully done and justly suffered,’ regardless of whether the defendant later receives a pardon,” he wrote, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1877 Knote v. United States decision. That ruling described a pardon as “an act of grace” that does not restore “rights or property once vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment.”
Moss, an appointee of President Barack Obama, firmly rejected Santos’ refund request because his debt to society had been paid during the time of his incarceration.
“Because Santos’ payments were collected while his convictions were ‘in force,’ id., the funds were not ‘erroneously collected’ and are therefore not refundable,” the judge wrote.
In 2023, Santos was convicted of four misdemeanors stemming from his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Santos was one of thousands who descended upon the Capitol that day, but he was one of the first individuals to breach the restricted Capitol grounds,” Moss noted. “Santos and his fellow rioters caused substantial physical damage to the Capitol, requiring the expenditure of more than $2.8 million for repairs.”
As part of his sentence, Santos was ordered to pay a $70 mandatory special assessment, $500 in restitution to the Architect of the Capitol, and a $2,500 fine. He paid a total of $2,026.19 before Trump granted him a pardon, including $1,456.19 toward the fine.
“In accordance with its usual protocol, the Finance Office for the District Court collected these funds and deposited them into the Crime Victims Restitution Fund within the United States Treasury,” Moss wrote. “After the court dismissed his case, Vargas submitted a request to the Finance Office for a refund of his payments, but the Office responded that it was unable to issue a refund.”
Santos cited a separate case, Nelson v. Colorado, in his argument for repayment. The Nelson case was a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision where the justices ruled that defendants whose convictions are vacated are entitled to a refund of any fines, fees, or restitution they paid. The Court held that keeping those funds without fair process violates due process rights. But Moss emphasized that Nelson did not apply to Santos because his conviction was not overturned — he was pardoned.
“Nelson had nothing to do with the scope of the pardon power,” the judge wrote. “Rather, it held that vacatur of a conviction presumptively entitles a defendant to a refund of her payments into the state’s coffers.”
Moss emphasized that the difference lies in how the conviction is undone. “The court’s power to order a refund does not turn on whether a defendant’s conviction was vacated or not; it turns on whether the defendant is entitled to funds that were deposited into the U.S. Treasury before the pardon was granted,” he explained.
“As Knote made clear, a pardoned individual is not ‘entitle[d]’ to payments that have already been deposited into the United States Treasury, absent congressional authorization to withdraw the funds.”
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