US court sentences white supremacist who threatened Pittsburgh jurors, witnesses to 6 years
A serial hate-monger acknowledged that he targeted people because they were Jewish.
The Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Photo by Benyamin Cohen
(JTA) — A federal court sentenced a West Virginia man to more than six years in prison for threatening jurors and witnesses in the trial of a man who massacred 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
Hardy Lloyd, 45, was arrested in West Virginia in July and pleaded guilty in September, acknowledging that the Jewishness of the victims of the 2018 shooting and the witnesses in the trial of the man who killed them was a factor prompting him to make the threats.
A court in Wheeling, West Virginia handed down the sentence on Dec. 20, the Associated Press reported.
Lloyd is a white supremacist and a self-proclaimed “reverend.” Federal agents who charged him in July said he “made threatening social media posts, website comments, and emails towards the jury and witnesses during the trial.”
A jury sentenced the gunman to death in August. The attack on the Tree of Life synagogue is the worst on Jews in U.S. history.
Lloyd also sent messages to survivors of the 2018 attack, the victims’ families and employees of the local Jewish federation and Secure Community Network, a nonprofit that coordinates security for Jewish institutions.
He lived commuting distance from Pittsburgh and left stickers in Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood where the 2018 attack on the synagogue occurred, with directions to his website.
Lloyd has long been known to law enforcement for harassing the Jewish community and has been sentenced to prison three time. He was most recently released in 2020.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Israeli opposition leader fears Israel will be blamed if Biden loses reelection
-
Fast Forward Two more hostages, including an American Israeli, are seen in video released by Hamas
-
Fast Forward This rabbi is ‘horrified’ at how a song he wrote is being used at campus pro-Palestinian protests
-
Fast Forward Source: Blinken hasn’t decided whether to sanction Israel for alleged abuses by one of its army units
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
-
Fast Forward AJC, USC Shoah Foundation announce partnership to document antisemitism since World War II
-
Yiddish יצחק באַשעװיסעס מיינונגען וועגן די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדןIsaac Bashevis’ opinion of American Jews
אין זײַנע „פֿאָרווערטס“־אַרטיקלען האָט ער קריטיקירט זייער צוגאַנג צום חורבן און צו ייִדישקײט.
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.