Arrest of Raleigh, Cary men bring number of NC residents charged in Jan. 6 riot to 28
The FBI arrested two men — one from Raleigh and one from Cary — on charges tied to the Capitol riot, making them at least the 27th and 28th North Carolinians criminally linked to the political violence.
Christopher “Chris” Carnell, who made his initial appearance in Raleigh federal court on March 2, faces five charges, including a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding. He is scheduled for a remote hearing in the Washington, D.C., federal courts on Wednesday.
On Monday, the FBI arrested David Worth Bowman, 21, of Raleigh and charged him with a felony and four misdemeanors in connection with the Capitol riot. The FBI says Bowman was Carnell’s companion during the violence on Jan. 6, 2021.
They join more than 1,000 others charged so far during the two-year investigation following the riot. Other N.C. arrests are expected.
On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to stop congressional certification of Trump’s election loss to President Joe Biden.
The violence has been tied to five deaths. Some 140 police officers were injured, while the Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damages.
Newly unsealed FBI documents show Carnell has personal ties to at least one other N.C. defendant. He was also caught on camera on the floor of the U.S. Senate explaining to a fellow N.C. rioter how the election certification process worked.
Carnell, according to an FBI affidavit, is a high school friend of Aiden Bilyard, also of Cary, who is scheduled to be sentenced March 17 to up to five years in prison for his role in the mob attack.
In fact, the FBI says it first learned of Carnell when agents arrested Bilyard in November 2021, seized his phone, and found a text conversation between the two and several other uncharged individuals.
The FBI called them “the Group.”
Investigators say the members went to Washington twice: first for “The Million MAGA March” in November, and later for the former president’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6.
Bilyard later identified Carnell to the FBI, the affidavit shows.
Photos included in the FBI document show a man identified as Bowman posing with Carnell in the Senate chamber and sitting at a senator’s desk fiddling with his phone.
The affidavit said there is probable cause to believe both Carnell and Bowman committed multiple crimes, including illegally entering the Capitol and disrupting an official proceeding.
Carnell was also part of an impromptu civics lesson on the floor of the Senate with another North Carolinian, Dale “D.J.” Shalvey of Conover, a tutorial that appeared in a New Yorker magazine video and is described in the FBI affidavit.
As a group of insurgents rifled through documents on the senators’ desks, Shalvey came across Sen. Ted Cruz’s planned remarks to object to the counting of the electoral votes of Arizona, one of the key swing states that Biden won and which Trump and his supporters baselessly accused of voter fraud.
Shalvey suspected Cruz, a Texas Republican and Trump supporter, of no good.
“He was going to sell us out all along — look!” said Shalvey, a Catawba County farmer, as he pointed to the Cruz document.
“Wait no,” Carnell responded, according to the affidavit.
“That’s a good thing. He’s on our side. He’s with us. He’s with us.”
Shalvey and his wife, Tara Stottlemyer, are scheduled for sentencing on March 29. Both have pleaded guilty to riot-related felonies and could be sent to prison.
Bowman spoke with the FBI before his arrest. In a voluntary interview on Dec. 1, Bowman admitted that he and Carnell were among those who breached the Senate floor. He also said that he and his friend had no plan once they got there.
“(L)ike we are in here,” he told his FBI interviewers.
“Like uh we’re a dog, we caught the car, we don’t know what to do.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
