Follansbee Man Arrested On Charges Related to Obstruction and Witness Tampering

Hardy Carroll Lloyd, 45, of Follansbee, was arrested last week on criminal charges related to his alleged obstruction and witness tampering in a federal trial.
He was taken into custody Thursday morning without incident and faces up to 35 years in prison, if convicted.
According to the criminal complaint, filed in U. S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia in Wheeling, Lloyd began commenting online about the federal hate crimes trial in Pittsburgh of Robert Bowers, the Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooter.
Lloyd, a self-proclaimed “reverend” of a white supremacy movement, made threatening social media posts, website comments and e-mails towards the jury and witnesses during the trial.
Lloyd also placed or had others place stickers in predominantly Jewish areas of Pittsburgh, directing people to the website containing his threats and antisemitic messages.
Lloyd is charged with obstruction of the due administration of justice, transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce and witness tampering.
He faces up to 10 years in prison for the obstruction charge, up to five years for the threats charge and up to 20 in prison for the tampering charge.
If convicted, a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
“Jury trials are a hallmark of the American justice system and attempts to intimidate witnesses or jurors will be met with a strong response,” said U. S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld. “The use of hateful threats in an effort to undermine a trial is especially troubling.”
“The safety and security of all citizens in our communities is a priority for the FBI,” said Mike Nordwall, FBI Pittsburgh special agent in charge.
“Threats of violence used to intimidate or influence a community or jury cannot and will not be tolerated. The FBI makes it a priority to investigate crimes based on religious bias. In this case, the Jewish community was specifically targeted by these threats. I want to thank the community for sharing information that helped lead to this arrest.”
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Randolph Bernard and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas are prosecuting the case on behalf of the government.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating.
Bowers was charged with several federal crimes for fatally shooting 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
The jury was selected April 24, 2023, and returned a guilty verdict on June 16.
On July 13, the jury found him eligible for the death penalty to which he was sentenced Aug. 3.
The complaint alleges that Lloyd used his YouTube account on dozens of occasions to post videos that sought the names of police who were investigating the case and anti-Semitic comments like, “We must start killing jews now!!”
Lloyd threatened to “dox” the police, a practice by which their personal information including their names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, possible embarrassing photos and other identifying information for the purpose of harassing or intimidating them is published online.
He also targeted Black Americans “beasts” and called for the death of transvestites and she-male pedophiles.
Concerning the jurors who heard the Bowers case, Lloyd’s online post said, “Robert Bowers did Pittsburgh a favor. Any juror who finds him guilty is guilty of anti-White racism.”
He also wrote, “Free Richard Bowers, PGH, or else there will be consiquences!!!”
Lloyd allegedly engineered the distribution of flyers or stickers in the greater Pittsburgh area to demand that Bowers be freed. The stickers promoted white supremacy and bore the image of a swastika.
Among the areas targeted with the flyers and stickers was the Wightman Park and Playground in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh and the Stanton Heights areas.
To protect jurors, their names were sealed until after their verdicts were rendered, but Lloyd’s online post said he would file to get the names and publish their personal information after the trial.
The complaint cited one alleged post in which Lloyd said, “I plan on filing for the names after the trial. Hope the jurors get told that and vote the right way?!?”
In addition to YouTube, Lloyd is alleged to have used the Reddit online service to post his comments, which were seen by more than 400,000 viewers.
Included in that number were visits by bots, software programs that can execute commands, reply to messages, or perform routine tasks, as online searches, either automatically or with minimal human intervention.
His posts also alleged encouraged the targeting of other synagogues as a means of killing more Jews. He said that it is better to go to prison for killing several people than just one lone target.
“Walk into a synagogue and gun down 11 jews and one rabbi. That’s how you make a difference, people!!” he posted.
During the trial, Lloyd is accused of attempting to intimidate witnesses, who were notified by law enforcement officials of those threats.
When the jurors reached their verdict on June 16, Lloyd alleged reacted by calling for massive distribution of the stickers and burning Pittsburgh to the ground.
“If Bowers get death, it’s death to the Jew race,” Lloyd is credited with posting.
When the jury found Bowers eligible for the death penalty on July 16, Lloyd reacted by saying, “We need a Tree of Life shooting every month . . . .”
A criminal complaint is an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.