FBI charges South Carolina man in connection with Jan. 6 Capitol riot

Friends and technology have led the FBI to charge a South Carolina man with criminal violations for allegedly being a participant in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

The man, Andrew Hatley, drove “from his residence in South Carolina on January 5, 2020, in a red Ford Mustang, early 2000s model, to attend the protests for the election,” according to an FBI complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

It was not clear from the legal papers where Hatley lives or if he is in federal custody.

Hatley is the first South Carolinian known to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. Dozens of other people from other states currently face federal charges, according to news accounts.

The riots, incited by President Trump and his allies, caused thousands of people to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to protest the president’s loss and the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. Arriving at the Capitol, a smaller group of up to 1,000 or more actually breached Capitol security and broke into the Senate and House chambers. Lawmakers fled only minutes before.

The complaint — the legal term for a charging document that contains a description of an alleged crime — said the FBI has photos of Hatley inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, provided by a witness tipster who knows Hatley. The witness, identified only as W-1, said that Hatley himself had sent a photo to him, the complaint said.

The complaint said the photo taken of Hatley shows a statue of John C. Calhoun in the background. Calhoun, a South Carolinian who died before the Civil War, was one of the nation’s fiercest advocates of enslaving people at a time when South Carolina had nearly 400,000 enslaved men, women and children.

The FBI complaint says the statue in the photo is the same as one in the crypt of the Capitol building.

One of the photos depicts Hatley wearing a green respirator, and U.S. Capitol police surveillance video has also identified Hatley as being in the Capitol rotunda where the Calhoun statue is, the complaint said.

Since Jan. 6, Hatley has gone on Facebook where a post on his account read, “It has come to my attention that there was someone who looks like me at the Capitol. I’d like to set the record straight. I don’t have that kind of motivation for lost causes. I just don’t care enough anymore, certainly not enough for all that.”

Despite Hatley’s denials, the FBI complaint said that Hatley had shared his geolocation with another friend, dubbed W-2, by means of a cellular telephone app called Life360 during “Hatley’s entire time in Washington, D.C.,” and had told a friend he was going to “the protests against the certification of the election.”

The complaint said, “Individuals can create an account with Life360 that allows the user to share information” and the FBI used that data to plot the movements of Hatley’s cell phone in Washington and place the phone “at the Capitol building” during the riot.

The complaint also said an agent had contacted Hatley on the cell phone alleged to have been at the Capitol and Hatley told the agent “he was not sure how much he should say without legal counsel because he could be in a great deal of trouble.

According to the complaint, Hatley faces four federal criminal charges, including “uttering threatening, or abusive language, or engag(ing) in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress...”

The complaint said that the FBI obtained a search warrant through U.S. District Court in South Carolina to help it in its search for Hatley’s cell phone information. Search warrants are not normally a matter of public record, at least in the initial stages of an investigation. It could not be located.

Other charges are:

Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.

▪ Engaging in disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct on Capitol buildings or grounds.

▪ Parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol Buildings.

Peter McCoy, U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, told reporters earlier this month his office of prosecutors would be doing all it could to investigate and prosecute South Carolina connections to the riots. Since that time, however, much of the investigation has apparently been run out of Washington and the charges filed have been in U.S. District court in the District of Columbia. It is not clear how much involvement South Carolina-based federal officials have had in the nationwide manhunt for people who tried to overthrow the government.

Earlier Monday, a Pickens man was arrested by state and local authorities for possessing explosives. State Law Enforcement Division officials said the arrest was “part of a federal investigation,” but released no further information.

This story will be updated.

This story was originally published January 18, 2021 at 9:35 AM.