# William Todd Wilson **Leader of the North Carolina (Sampson County) chapter of the [[Oath Keepers]]** who became the **third Oath Keeper to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy** in connection with January 6. A military and law enforcement veteran from Newton Grove, North Carolina, Wilson pleaded guilty on **May 4, 2022**, to one count of seditious conspiracy and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, and agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation into [[Stewart Rhodes]] and the broader Oath Keepers conspiracy. Wilson's significance is not operational — he was a mid-level chapter leader, not a strategist — but **evidentiary**. His guilty plea and cooperation agreement provided prosecutors with critical insider testimony about the Oath Keepers' planning, weapons staging, and most consequentially, Rhodes's attempts to reach [[Donald Trump]] directly on the evening of January 6 to urge him to invoke the [[Insurrection Act]]. ## Background Born circa 1977, Newton Grove, North Carolina. Military veteran and former law enforcement officer (specific service details not publicly detailed in court filings). Joined the Oath Keepers in **2016** and rose to lead the organization's Sampson County, North Carolina chapter. His military and law enforcement background was typical of the Oath Keepers' recruitment model — the organization specifically targeted current and former service members and first responders, framing its antigovernment ideology as an extension of their oaths of service. ## January 6: The Arsenal and the Breach Wilson's actions on January 5–6 illustrate the paramilitary dimension of the Capitol attack — the dimension that separates it from a spontaneous riot: **January 5:** Wilson drove from North Carolina to the Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia (the Oath Keepers' staging hotel), carrying an AR-15-style rifle, a 9mm pistol, approximately 200 rounds of ammunition, body armor, a camouflaged combat uniform, pepper spray, a large walking stick intended for use as a weapon, and a pocketknife. These weapons were stored at the hotel as part of a **[[Quick Reaction Force (QRF)]]** — a cache of firearms positioned outside Washington, D.C., that could be retrieved and deployed if Rhodes gave the order. **January 6:** Wilson bypassed police barricades and officers, entered the Capitol through the **Upper West Terrace doors at 2:34 p.m.** — making him the **first of the Oath Keepers co-conspirators to breach the building**. He was inside the Capitol during the period when Congress was in recess and members were sheltering in secure locations. ## The Rhodes Phone Call Wilson's most consequential testimony concerned events after the breach. At approximately **5:00 p.m. on January 6**, at the Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, Wilson was in a private suite with Rhodes and other Oath Keepers. According to Wilson's admissions, Rhodes placed a phone call — on speakerphone — to an individual Wilson understood to be an **intermediary with access to Trump**. Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly urge this intermediary to tell the president to invoke the [[Insurrection Act]] and call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power. The call was not answered by Trump. But the testimony established that Rhodes — even after the Capitol had been breached and cleared — was still actively seeking presidential authorization for armed resistance to the transfer of power. This evidence supported the prosecution's theory that January 6 was not a spontaneous outburst but part of a planned conspiracy with aspirations of presidential sanction. ## Cooperation and Sentencing As part of his plea agreement, Wilson agreed to **cooperate fully** with the government's ongoing investigation — testifying before grand juries and at trial if called. He was one of three Oath Keepers (alongside Joshua James and Brian Ulrich) who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and agreed to cooperate, though notably **none of the three were called as witnesses** when the government rested its case in the Rhodes trial in November 2022. The prosecution evidently determined it had sufficient evidence without their live testimony. On **December 18, 2024**, U.S. District Judge **Amit Mehta** sentenced Wilson to **one year of home detention and three years of probation** — significantly below the statutory maximum and below the one year of incarceration prosecutors had recommended. The lenient sentence reflected Wilson's cooperation and his role as a follower rather than a leader of the conspiracy. During the sentencing, Judge Mehta made pointed remarks about the prospect of pardons for the seditious conspiracy defendants, calling the notion that Rhodes could be absolved of his actions "frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country." One month later, Trump pardoned Rhodes and the other convicted Oath Keepers in the [[J6 Mass Pardons]] of January 2025. ## KB Significance 1. **The cooperating witness as evidence pipeline.** Wilson's plea and cooperation agreement provided the prosecution with insider access to the Oath Keepers' operational planning — the QRF weapons staging, the communications structure, the chain of command. His testimony about the Rhodes phone call established the conspiracy's aspirational connection to the White House. Even cooperating witnesses who are never called to testify at trial serve a structural function: they validate the prosecution's theory and provide leverage for additional plea negotiations. 2. **The QRF as premeditation evidence.** Wilson's transport of an AR-15, pistol, 200 rounds, and body armor to a Virginia hotel — staged outside D.C. for rapid deployment — is among the clearest evidence that January 6 was planned as a paramilitary operation, not a protest that got out of hand. The QRF model (weapons cached nearby, retrievable on command) is a military operational concept applied to domestic insurrection. 3. **The pardons-as-nullification problem.** Wilson cooperated, testified, and received a lenient sentence in exchange — the system working as designed. Then the principal defendant (Rhodes) was pardoned, nullifying the conviction that Wilson's cooperation helped secure. This sequence damages the cooperating-witness model that federal prosecutions depend on: if defendants can expect presidential pardons for politically motivated crimes, the incentive to cooperate collapses. See [[Pardons as Currency]]. ## See Also - [[Stewart Rhodes]] — The Oath Keepers founder whose conspiracy Wilson helped expose - [[Oath Keepers]] — The organization Wilson led at the chapter level - [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] — The event itself - [[J6 Mass Pardons]] — The pardons that nullified the seditious conspiracy convictions - [[Pardons as Currency]] — The framework for understanding pardons as political tools - [[Militias and Extremist Groups Ecosystem]] — The broader movement context