FBI arrests Wake County man, ‘Stephen Ignoramus,’ accused in attack on U.S. Capitol
The FBI arrested a Wake County man accused of storming into the U.S. Capitol with other rioters last month, after former President Donald Trump held a rally for supporters and falsely claimed the presidential election had been stolen from him.
Stephen Maury Baker, 32, of Garner, was arrested Monday and charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building, as well as “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”
Baker is the second North Carolina resident to face federal charges in the Capitol riot. Christopher Raphael Spencer, of Pilot Mountain, was charged in January, The News & Observer reported. Both men are accused of filming themselves storming the Capitol in real time, and streaming it live to an online audience, the FBI said.
Several other North Carolinians were arrested after the riot, mostly for relatively minor charges like curfew violations, The N&O reported. Washington, DC, set a 6 p.m. curfew following the attack.
According to the charges against Baker, he was part of the mob that broke into the Capitol and began livestreaming it online, including via his YouTube channel called “Stephen Ignoramus.” He repeatedly referred to himself by that name, showed his face on his videos several times from inside the Capitol, and ended one of his streams by saying the cops were forcing everyone out of the building.
“That was so epic,” he said, according to the charges against him. “Historic day.”
The FBI says Baker deleted the videos from his YouTube page at some point between Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, but that investigators found copies of the videos that had been uploaded to other video sites, as well as by news media organizations.
Those details of the charges against him were kept secret until he was in custody, according to a Monday court filing, to prevent the possible destruction of evidence or other damage to the investigation.
Baker was identified by multiple witnesses who contacted authorities, the charges say. One witness told authorities he had at least two YouTube channels, although one of them had been banned in December, and the witness was “alarmed by the content ... including advancement of conspiracy theories and mockery of minority groups.”
Currently, the only publicly available videos on the Stephen Ignoramus channel are four videos of him preaching and playing Christian songs on an acoustic guitar.
Attended survivalist camp, co-worker said
Last week, a story by The Daily Beast about Baker said he has been living in Washington, D.C., not North Carolina, and working as a “beloved” music teacher.
Several years ago he attended a survivalist camp in the Virginia mountains, then started his YouTube channel and began promoting racist, anti-Semitic and conspiratorial theories online, a co-worker said, according to the Daily Beast.
It also reported that one of his now-deleted YouTube videos from before the Capitol attack features Baker telling the audience: “Even if you were a Martian coming down you can see that there is anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-straight (expletive) going on, regardless of who you are.”
According to the FBI’s criminal complaint against Baker, he seemed to be familiar with far-right militias, including groups called the Oath Keepers and the Red Elephants.
According to time stamps on his videos, Baker was inside the Capitol at least as late as 2:11 p.m. on Jan. 6, just minutes before lawmakers and others were evacuated. About an hour earlier, he filmed himself standing inside the Capitol saying it had been “super intense.”
“We’re having fun, huh?” he asked his streaming audience, the FBI said.
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This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 12:34 PM.
