NC Oath Keeper pleads guilty to sedition. He threw his phone in ocean to hide his trail

A Fayetteville-area man linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has become the first North Carolinian to plead guilty to the explosive charge of seditious conspiracy.

William Todd Wilson of Newton Grove, described in a newly released court document as a “military and law enforcement veteran,” faces up to 7 1/2 years in prison after entering his plea Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of Washington, D.C. He will be sentenced at a later date.

The 44-year-old Sampson County resident becomes the third member of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group that recruits current and former members of the military and law enforcement, to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot.

Prosecutors say members of the group — including former High Point police Officer Laura Steele — planned and launched multiple military-style assaults on the government building to stop congressional certification of former President Donald Trump’s defeat. Steele, a Thomasville resident named in a separate indictment, is not charged with sedition.

Seditious conspiracy, the most serious charge leveled so far in the massive and widening Justice Department prosecution, is defined in part as a plan “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law.”

Before Wednesday, Wilson’s name had not surfaced in the 15 months since thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by the ex-president’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, stormed the Capitol.

The violence is blamed for up to seven deaths, 140 police injuries and more than $2.5 million in damages. Some 800 arrests have been made, including at least 21 from North Carolina.

Oath Keeper members’ involvement

Wilson is one of 10 Oath Keeper members, including founder Stewart Rhodes, charged with seditious conspiracy in a Jan. 12 indictment. All have pleaded not guilty, except for Wilson. Wilson agreed to cooperate with the investigation of his former conspirators.

As part of his plea deal, Wilson also pleaded guilty to a second felony charge — obstruction of an official proceeding. As with the conspiracy charge, it carries up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say they will recommend a combined sentencing range for Wilson of 63 to 78 months.

Writing in Wilson’s plea document, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ahmed Baset described the defendant as the Sampson County leader of the Oath Keepers, which Wilson joined in 2016. Sampson County is east of Fayetteville and Cumberland County, part of a metropolitan area that is home to thousands of current and former military members from Fort Bragg.

According to documents in his case, Wilson admitted joining Rhodes and the other Oath Keeper conspirators in planning to use violence to block the country’s peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to current President Joe Biden.

“It’s time to fight,” Wilson wrote in an email to group members on Dec. 15, 2020, prosecutors say.

A week before Jan. 6, he wrote, “Things are about to get real.”

The day before the riot, and in response to another conspirator’s message that there could be unrest on Jan. 6, Wilson replied, “That’s why I have all my gear.”

Wilson’s “gear” included an AR-15-style rifle, a 9 mm pistol, 200 rounds of ammunition, body armor, pepper spray, a large walking stick he planned to use as a weapon, and a camouflaged combat uniform. He left most it in his Northern Virginia hotel room but was ready to retrieve the weapons if called upon to do so, prosecutors say.

Wilson, according to prosecutors, was the first of the Oath Keeper conspirators to breach the Capitol. He then joined other members of the mob to push open the Rotunda doors from the inside to allow more rioters — including other Oath Keepers — to break in.

Afterward, according to court documents, Wilson was in a private suite at a Washington hotel with other Oath Keepers when Rhodes made a phone call and repeatedly urged the unidentified person who picked up to tell Trump to issue a call for the Oath Keepers and similar group to forcibly resist the defeated president’s ouster.

The individual refused to let Rhodes talk to Trump directly, documents show. After the call ended, Rhodes told the group, “I just want to fight.”

Wilson arrived home in eastern North Carolina the next day and quickly began taking steps to hide his trail from the FBI, prosecutors say.

In late January 2021, Wilson threw his only cell phone into the Atlantic Ocean.

This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 6:47 PM with the headline "NC Oath Keeper pleads guilty to sedition. He threw his phone in ocean to hide his trail."

Michael Gordon

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5095

Michael Gordon has been the Observer’s legal affairs writer since 2013. He has been an editor and reporter at the paper since 1992, occasionally writing about schools, religion, politics and sports. He spent two summers as “Bikin Mike,” filing stories as he pedaled across the Carolinas.