A Dozen North Carolinians Now Facing Federal Charges in Capitol Insurrection

 

According to the News and Observer:

NC RESIDENTS WHO FACE FEDERAL CHARGES FOR THE US CAPITOL RIOT

Stephen Baker, Garner

Christopher Spencer, Pilot Mountain

Virginia Spencer, Pilot Mountain

Lewis Cantwell, Sylva

Laura Steele, Thomasville

Grayson Sherrill, Cherryville

Matthew Mark Wood, Reidsville

Johnny Harris, Shelby

Charles Donohoe, Winston-Salem

James “Les” Little, Claremont

Stephen Ethan Horn, Wake Forest

Bradley Stuart Bennett, Trinity

Stephen Ethan Horn

The last two on the list:

Stephen Ethan Horn

Stephen Ethan Horn surrendered to the FBI on April 9 and made his initial appearance in Raleigh federal court. He is charged with three federal crimes.

A photo included in Horn’s court file shows the helmeted Wake Forest man standing above the Capitol fray while he appears to be filming with his phone.

In an FBI affidavit, Horn is quoted as saying that he did not take part in the violence or the protest and did not go into the Capitol in search of “cheap thrills.” Rather, Horn said, he entered to “accurately document and record a significant event.”

Bradley Stuart Bennett

Bennett was a QAnon devotee from small-town North Carolina (the Randolph County town of Trinity, population 6,600, about 75 miles north of Charlotte). He entered the Capitol on January 6th with his Texas girlfriend, who is also charged in the riot.

 He surfaced this week in Charlotte, where he surrendered to the FBI. Just before noon on Monday, he walked into an uptown federal courtroom charged with the now-familiar battery of charges tied to the effort by Trump supporters to overturn the presidential election.

“Patriots going to war,” is how Bennett put it in his video of the Capitol riot, the FBI affidavit shows.

Bradley Stuart Bennett

Bennett remained in custody Friday at the Mecklenburg County Jail, where he awaits transfer to the federal courts of Washington, which will prosecute his case.

In its affidavit, the FBI says multiple tipsters identified him as an outspoken adherent to the unfounded QAnon theory, which holds that former President Trump was fighting a Democratic Party conspiracy of demonic, cannibalistic pedophiles.

In the days leading up to Jan. 6, when Congress was scheduled to certified Trump’s electoral loss to now-President Joe Biden, Bennett said he would be in Washington for a Trump rally and urged others to join him.

“FAIR WARNING: If this election is stolen for Biden, Patriots will go TO WAR,’’ Bennett posted on Jan. 6, according to the affidavit.