Hardy Lloyd ordered detained on charges of threatening Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial witnesses, jurors
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Self-proclaimed white supremacist Hardy Lloyd was ordered to be detained after he was indicted for allegedly threatening witnesses and jurors in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial.
The Department of Justice said 45-year-old Hardy Lloyd of Follansbee, West Virginia, was indicted Tuesday on charges of obstruction of the due administration of justice, transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce and witness tampering. He was arrested earlier this month and at a hearing on Wednesday morning, he was ordered to be detained.
According to the Department of Justice, Lloyd, a self-proclaimed "reverend" of a white supremacy movement, made threatening social media posts, website comments and emails during the trial. He also put stickers in predominantly Jewish areas of Pittsburgh, directing people to a website with his threats and antisemitic messages, prosecutors said.
During the trial, Robert Bowers was sentenced to death for shooting and killing 11 worshipers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue in 2018. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in the nation's history.
In the 34-page affidavit, investigators said Google reached out to the FBI in March about YouTube comments allegedly made by Lloyd where he advocates for killing Jewish people and pushes people to his website.
In May, investigators said Lloyd started posting about the synagogue shooting trial and continued to post about it, and white supremacist stickers with his website address were discovered in Pittsburgh.
The criminal filing said he posted pictures of witnesses testifying in the trial and doxing -- or divulging their personal information and addresses -- while exhorting his followers to take action.
For the past two decades, Lloyd has spewed antisemitism hate and has been sentenced to prison three times. He returned to prison in 2019 for violating his probation, dropping neo-Nazi leaflets throughout the city's East End and posting a call for violence in the wake of the city's proposed assault weapons ban. He was later released in October 2020, prompting a warning from the Jewish Federation Of Greater Pittsburgh.
