Left: Andrew Taake. Right: Taake seen holding a whip during a confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (via FBI court filing).
A Jan. 6 rioter from Texas who attacked police officers with a metal whip and doused them in bear spray is suing the Justice Department, claiming that he is “permanently injured, disfigured, and sterile” after being “wrongly” injected with “massive levels of estrogen and other improper drugs” during his time behind bars for the 2021 Capitol attack.
“This caused Taake to develop female breast tissue and leak breast milk,” lawyers for Andrew Taake, 36, wrote in a complaint filed in federal court on Sept. 5.
“Fellow inmates harassed and assaulted Taake, and Taake further broke and disfigured his hand while fighting to defend himself,” the complaint charges.
Taake, who got hit with an arrest warrant for online solicitation of a minor after being pardoned by President Donald Trump earlier this year, pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Trump granted “full, complete and unconditional” pardon of Taake and his roughly 1,500 fellow rioters earlier this year after taking office.
“While Taake was locked up in the U.S. Prison system, Taake sought medical care but was knowingly and deliberately denied treatment, denied proper testing and treatment, deprived of medical care, and wrongly injected with massive levels of estrogen and other improper drugs,” the complaint says. “Taake spent approximately half of his three and one-half years in solitary confinement, abused by staff as well as inmates.”
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Taake”s attorneys claim he was “diagnosed many years before Jan. 6” — including in 2016 — with medical defects of low testosterone.
“The Plaintiff suffers from hypogonadism and his treatment was supposed to be testosterone administered weekly (not monthly),” the complaint says. “Due to a longstanding medical hormonal imbalance, Taake needed medical testosterone treatments every seven days. But medical staff within the D.C. jail and the Bureau of Prisons were openly hostile and deliberately indifferent to Taake’s medical needs.”
Taake allegedly contracted and tested positive for tuberculosis, and medical staff provided no treatment, his lawsuit says.
“Medical staff … openly mocked Taake, and callously ignored Taake,” the complaint alleges. “While at Lewisburg, Taake was locked down for three months and had to shower while handcuffed to the shower stall. He suffered weeks of solitary confinement.”
According to Taake’s lawyers, correctional staff “wrongly injected” him with estrogen rather than testosterone, causing Taake to develop “female breast tissue” and other alleged ailments. “Taake was never allowed to see the medicine bottles themselves,” the complaint says. “When Taake’s blood was finally tested, his testosterone levels were less than one-tenth of normal,” the document says.
“This caused Taake to be harassed, stalked and assaulted by inmates within the prison system,” the complaint says. “The estrogen injections caused Taake to develop gynecomastia.”
Taake claims he was injected with estrogen “repeatedly,” causing his prolactin levels to become elevated. His lawyers describe prolactin as a “hormone or trigger that causes women to produce breast milk,” the complaint says. “Taake began to produce breast milk,” the document alleges. “Note that most of the time naturally born women do not experience that response until becoming pregnant and giving birth. Thus, the injections of the wrong chemicals were extreme to cause Taake to respond like a female having just given birth.”
Taake made headlines at the time of his Jan. 6 arrest after he was turned in by a woman he met on the dating app Bumble. He was sentenced to 74 months in prison — followed by 36 months of supervised release — in addition to paying $2,000 in restitution.
“Due to the unlawful conduct of the Defendants, Taake suffered a three-and-a-half year prison horror story,” the complaint says. “While wrongly imprisoned over the January 6 events, Taake sought medical attention but was denied, delayed, and knowingly misdiagnosed and mistreated.”
Taake is seeking relief and damages against the DOJ, as well as several Trump administration officials, for the “pain and suffering, emotional distress, lack of enjoyment of life and freedom to engage in normal life due to such lingering effects as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” his lawyers say. He describes what allegedly happened to him as being “illegal, unconstitutional and intentional.”
Taake was was arrested earlier this year in Leon County, Texas, for a 2016 charge of online solicitation of a minor that cops discovered. Prosecutors in Harris County took up the solicitation charge.
“Re-arresting individuals, like Taake, who were released with pending State warrants, will require significant resources,” District Attorney Sean Teare said in a statement before Taake’s arrest. “Know that we are already in the process of tracking Taake down, as he must answer for 2016 charge of soliciting a minor online.”
According to the Houston Chronicle, Taake was allegedly soliciting a person in 2016 who he “believed to be younger than 17 years of age.” He was 27 at the time.
Authorities say Taake talked on social media with an undercover cop posing as a 15-year-old girl. He allegedly sent “multiple explicit messages” and asked to meet up with her — even admitting that he “could go to jail” if anyone found out what he was doing. Taake allegedly went to an address that the undercover provided and cops arrested him. If convicted, he faces a decade in prison.
