A virulently antisemitic man who left a string of explicitly racist posts across social media and in real life was arrested today for making threats against jurors and witnesses in the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting trial.
Hardy Carroll Lloyd, 45, lived in Follansbee, West Virginia. He was “taken into custody early this morning without incident,” according to a Justice Department press release.
A complaint filed by the government in a West Virginia court alleged that the probable cause for Lloyd’s arrest was an FBI investigation which revealed that Lloyd had “corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice” during the trial of the mass shooting.
According to the complaint, Lloyd started posting about the October 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh on May 2 this year. He made a series of posts calling for Robert Bowers, who was sentenced to death last week, to be freed. Lloyd also maintained a threatening website with an “enemies page” which included information and threats directed towards victims and relatives of victims of the attacks.
On Lloyd’s website, CREATIVITYRELIGION.com, he called himself the “Rev. Lloyd,” preaching a “Holy Faith” based on “Eternal Laws of Nature, Science, History, Logic and Common sense.”
“We believe that Nature has 15 billion years of knowledge to teach us,” Lloyd wrote on the website. “That the race’s [sic] are unequal to one another and so are the TWO genders. That Race is our Religion. That Free Speech is an absolute. And that White Genocide must be fought by any and all means.”
On the homepage, there’s a “Legal Statement” where Lloyd says “we will never condemn ANY White person who strikes back against the JOG [Jewish Owned Government] no matter how vile their attacks are. Violence is the ONLY solution now!!”
On March 21, 2023, the complaint alleges, Google reported “troubling comments” made by a user on YouTube with the username “Reverend Lloyd” to the FBI.
Google provided subscriber information to the FBI, the complaint says, which detailed connections between Lloyd and the user. The user left a series of comments linking to his website and calling for murder and violence against Jews, Black people, and transgender people.
“See my website,” read one. “I openly advocate killing jews and cops.”
On May 17, 2023, the complaint alleges, Lloyd made posts calling for the freeing of the Bowers
“Any juror who finds him guilty is guilty of anti-White racism!!” read one.
On May 19, the complaint alleges, Lloyd sent an email to a series of local news outlets with the subject line “Ouch.”
“This woman was a juror on a case and voted against the defendant,” read the email, detailing a deranged fantasy about what Lloyd might do to jurors who voted against Bowers. “After the trial some asshole posted her PUBLIC record onto social media. Bitch went to the grocery store. She never came home. Guess she should have voted the White way?!? Looks like it hurt.”
A video of a gunman “shooting a woman in the face from the first-person point of view of the gunman” was attached to the email, according to the complaint.
There was no suggestion in the complaint that Lloyd was the gunman in the video or that a woman juror ended up being harmed.
In 2004, the SPLC reported that Lloyd was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, who he admitted to shooting in the face with a handgun during an argument. Lloyd claimed self-defense and was acquitted of first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in 2006.
From May 19 to May 20, stickers were found around Pittsburgh with neo-Nazi messages and a link which redirected to Lloyd’s CREATIVITYRELIGION.com.
One of the stickers read “100% White 100% Proud,” and was posted to the r/Pittsburgh subreddit.
“Hardy Lloyd is back in the area,” u/smeltofelderberries commented. “Be very careful if you see him posting this stuff.”
In another email sent to local media, the complaint alleged, Lloyd talked about his plan to target the jurors if they voted to convict the shooter.
“We shall also file for the names of the jury once it is over to make sure they voted the right way. If Bowers is not freed then we shall not only up our flyers, but also make PGH sorry,” Lloyd wrote. “We cannot state what this is, of course. Don’t want to say anything NOT covered under the 1A. But just know that any guilty verdict could bring down the wrath of lone wolves in the region.”
On June 2, the complaint alleges, Lloyd posted photos of “several victims and witnesses” in the case to his “enemies” page.
On June 13 and 14, an undercover FBI agent emailed Lloyd to try to coax information out of him, according to the complaint. The agent asked Lloyd for information about the jurors, writing that they were “ready to go hunting.”
Lloyd responded to the agent with a series of emails quoted in the complaint. He said he had no intention of requesting information on jurors, lived nowhere near Pittsburgh, and accused the FBI agent of trying to entrap him. “Listen, Brother,” he wrote in one. “I do not live in PA, nor anywhere near PA.”
According to the complaint, Follansbee, West Virginia is approximately 45 minutes from Pittsburgh. GPS information for Lloyd’s cell phone placed him in the Pittsburgh area on July 22, between 12:22am and 4:28am, the same morning when another batch of racist and antisemitic stickers were found around the Stanton Heights area of Pittsburgh.
After the guilty verdict in the massacre case, Lloyd posted a message on the homepage of his creativityreligion.com website calling for Pittsburgh to “burn to the ground!!!”
On Aug. 3, Lloyd posted a call on Telegram, his website, his VK account, and in an email to the Jewish Chronicle that “Lone Wolves on NY, PA and Ohio, target Western PA’s jews … Shed jew blood till none is left to spill!!”
He also posted on Telegram on Aug. 8 that 5-10 random Black people in Alabama would be “targeted in retaliation,” as well as two random Jews or Black people in Austin and Pittsburgh.”
“PS:” read a disclaimer at the end of the message. “The above is protected under the 1A as a general call to violence.”
The next day, an FBI special agent filed a request for an arrest warrant.
“Oh this is freaking awesome!!!” wrote u/AIfieHitchcock in a r/Pittsburgh thread discussing the arrest. “What a win for the city. He’s only been out for like a year or so and has been a total racist douchebag the entire time menacing all over the place.”
