In the weeks leading up to President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office, at least two U.S. Capitol rioters from North Carolina have tried to delay their federal sentences in hopes that he will pardon them.

Federal judges shot down both requests, but Trump’s promise to pardon “most” of the more than 1,400 people who stormed Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, could mean clemency for the at least 48 North Carolinians — including 10 from the Charlotte area — charged in the riots.

During his “Stop the Steal” rally on the National Mall in 2021, Trump falsely suggested the 2020 election was stolen from him. His followers tried to take it back. They broke the Capitol windows, toppled doors and assaulted police officers in a violent attempt to stop the certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s win.

Trump in a recent “Meet the Press” interview repeated his intentions to issue pardons to his supporters after his inauguration on Monday.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves of Washington, D.C. — the top prosecutor who helped lead the Justice Department’s largest known investigation into hundreds of rioter cases — said Tuesday that pardons can’t undo the prosecutions.

Prosecutors have already held defendants accountable, he told The Associated Press, and “there will always be a public record of what occurred… people who care to know the facts will be able to find out the facts.”

Bradley Bennett — a Huntersville rioter who in January 2024 pleaded guilty to entering, parading and engaging in disorderly conduct in the Capitol — referenced that interview when asking a judge to delay his Jan. 7 sentencing.

Bennett, according to court documents, originally also faced a felony charge of obstructing a government proceeding, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Video shows him climbing scaffolding, entering the Capitol and going into the Senate chamber.

“FAIR WARNING,” Bennett said in a caption under a Facebook profile photograph posted in the days leading up to the D.C. rally, according to documents. “IF THIS ELECTION IS STOLEN FOR BIDEN ... PATRIOTS WILL GO TO WAR.”

His lawyer, Albert Watkins of St. Louis, previously told The Charlotte Observer that Bennett was an unarmed “man who loves his country.” He wasn’t “violent or destructive or threatening,” Watkins said, he was swept up in Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud.

“He, like millions of Americans, are navigating a difficult path from the world of propaganda to the present reality,” Watkins said in May 2021.

Now, Bennett is waiting for Trump’s promised pardons, lawyers wrote in a December court filing.

“If Mr. Bennett is sentenced on January 7, 2025, and subsequently pardoned on January 20, 2025,” Bennett’s lawyers wrote in a court filing, “he will still sustain a final conviction Judgment that cannot be expunged and will potentially cause Mr. Bennett irreparable harm.”

Chief Judge James E. Boasberg denied the motion.

“Speculation as to how the incoming administration will proceed is not a basis for a continuance,” he wrote, according to a court docket entry.

But the hearing was later reset anyway to February due to a death in the family of Bennett’s attorney.

Another rioter, 22-year-old Christopher Carnell of Cary, filed a similar request hours after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, in November. He had been convicted of felony obstruction and four misdemeanors for his participation in the insurrection.

Carnell, according to court documents, shouted “TREASON, TREASON, TREASON,” with a mob of people going through the Capitol Rotunda. He was with 21-year-old David Worth Bowman of Raleigh.

Judge Beryl A. Howell denied the motion to delay sentencing.

Over 1,000 charged in U.S.

Across the country, about 1,100 defendants from all 50 states have been convicted and sentenced in the riots, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. As of Thursday, 28 North Carolinians have been convicted, their sentences ranging from 15 days to six years in prison.

Trump himself was indicted on four felony counts in August 2023 on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results and attempting to obstruct Congress’ certification of votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

In July, though, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump has substantial immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office. After Trump won in November, the Department of Justice dropped the case, citing the Constitution’s prohibition on indicting or prosecuting a sitting president.

Recently sentenced NC rioters

In December, three North Carolinians were sentenced for their involvement in the insurrection.

William Todd Wilson, a military veteran and member of the right-wing militia group Oath Keepers, previously pleaded guilty to felony charges of seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Prosecutors once said they would recommend the Newton Grove man spend five to six and a half years in prison, The Charlotte Observer reported. Instead, on Dec. 18, Wilson was sentenced to three years of probation.

According to court documents, Wilson got a lesser sentence for giving the government information that helped another investigation.

He must pay restitution of $2,000, participate in mental health treatment and complete 120 hours of community service.

Carnell, the Cary man who asked a judge to delay his sentencing until after Trump’s inauguration, was sentenced on Dec. 13 to six months in prison and one year of probation. He must also pay a $2,500 fine and $500 in restitution.

Bowman, the Raleigh man arrested alongside Carnell, was also sentenced on Dec. 13 to two months in prison and a year on probation for felony obstruction of an official proceeding. He must also pay $500 in restitution.

Rioters awaiting sentencing

Tanya Bishop, one half of a Snow Hill couple arrested together on Capitol Hill, is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 5 on charges of felony civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers.

Bennett, the Huntersville man who asked a judge to delay his sentencing, is scheduled for court on Feb. 12.

Jeremy Bertino, a former leader of the Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy and unlawful possession of a firearm, will reappear in court sometime in February.

Rioters awaiting trial

Lee Stutts, an ex-Marine from Terrell, was supposed to go to trial Jan. 13, but his case is now scheduled for March. He has pleaded not guilty to 15 counts, including felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.

“I didn’t do what they say I did,” the 46-year-old told the Observer days after a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted him in May. “I didn’t punch any officers. I didn’t push any officers.”

Edward George, a man who lives in both Fayetteville and Clearwater, Florida, is scheduled for trial May 19.

He has pleaded not guilty to nine counts, including charges obstructing the joint session of Congress, trespassing on restricted grounds, engaging in disorderly conduct, resisting and assaulting a law enforcement officer, engaging in civil disorder, and entering a gallery of Congress without authorization.

He was also charged with stealing an American flag and a flagpole.

Defendants without pleas

Four North Carolinians have not yet entered a plea following their arrests in connection with the insurrection.

Jay Robert Thaxton, of Concord, was charged in June with felony obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder. He does not yet have a plea hearing on the docket.

Paul Marvin Nowell, of Wendell, has a plea hearing scheduled for Tuesday, the day after Trump’s inauguration. He was charged in July with felony obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.

Gregory Charles Peck, Jr., a Connelly Springs man charged in August, is expected to enter a plea on Thursday on a civil disorder charge and felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon.

John Joseph Carl, a Pinetops man who became a police officer after allegedly joining rioters in January 2021, has a status update hearing on Feb. 14. He was charged in August with felony obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.

How do pardons work?

When asked if he planned to pardon those who charged the Capitol, Trump on Dec. 8 told NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker: “We’re looking at it right now — most likely, yeah… Those people have suffered long and hard.”

In some cases, he said, “their lives have been destroyed.”

Trump said “there may be some exceptions” to the pardons and that they would be determined case-by-case.

Presidents hold the legal authority to grant clemency, or presidential mercy, most commonly through pardons.

“As a legal matter,” said Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet during an interview with McClatchy, “his power is unlimited.”

Extraordinary large-scale pardons have political implications that Trump and his advisers would likely take into account, he said.

A pardon, according to the Department of Justice, expresses “the President’s forgiveness.”

Pardons typically come after a defendant has accepted “responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence.”

Pardons, the Justice Department says, do not signify innocence. Rather, they “remove civil disabilities – e.g., restrictions on the right to vote, hold state or local office, or sit on a jury – imposed because of the conviction.”

Pardons also “should lessen the stigma” from convictions.

Commutations, another form of clemency, completely or partially reduce sentences for those in prison or on community supervision.

As the end of his term neared, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden. The controversial move spared Hunter Biden from a potential prison sentence for tax and gun convictions and any future prosecution.

Biden, in the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history, in December pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes and commuted sentences for nearly 1,500 people who had successfully “reintegrated into their families and communities” after being on home arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump, during his first term, pardoned 237 people — including five North Carolinians charged with making false statements, money laundering conspiracy, insider trading conspiracy, illegal hunting and tax fraud.

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Observer data reporter Gavin Off contributed to this story.

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