One of the 11 South Carolinians facing charges over last year’s Capitol riot could be thrown in jail after prosecutors alleged he tried to persuade his estranged wife, a potential witness in his case, not to testify against him.
William Norwood III violated the conditions of his April release by texting and emailing his wife against a judge’s order, prosecutors wrote in a filing that revealed more about the Greer man’s role in the attack on the Capitol building.
Norwood told her to “keep [her] mouth shut” and pleaded with her, “Do not throw me under the bus,” after she aided the FBI’s investigation of him, Justice Department lawyers wrote Jan. 13.
“The content of the defendant’s text messages with his estranged wife ... show what appears to be a sustained campaign by the defendant to coerce, intimidate, threaten, and corruptly persuade a potential government witness to recant her statements to law enforcement and to obstruct justice,” prosecutors wrote.
In a Jan. 13 hearing held just hours after the filing became public, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan warned he was “extremely concerned” about the allegation. The irate judge gave Norwood’s defense attorney a month to come up with an argument for why Norwood shouldn’t be detained.
“I’m inclined to revoke bond,” the judge said.
The FBI arrested Norwood in February 2021 after seeing screenshots of text messages where he bragged to family members about storming the U.S. Capitol, fighting police officers inside and stealing their gear. Unlike six of his fellow Palmetto State defendants, he has refused to plead guilty. He insists he was lying in the family group chat and never assaulted any officers. His trial on seven federal charges is expected to begin this summer.
Norwood was allowed out of jail while his case played out, but only with a judge’s order that he not contact his estranged wife. Tampering with a witness carries serious penalties: up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
But Norwood did it anyway, court filings allege.
He pressured her to recant her statements to the FBI in connection with his case, but she refused, texting him back: "I will tell the whole truth," prosecutors wrote.
"Do not throw me under the bus," Norwood wrote, according to court records. "What part of spousal privilege don't you get???"
At one point, after Norwood's wife texted him that she refused to write "another bogus (expletive) email," Norwood wrote, in all caps: "STUP (expletive) LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING AND HELP ME LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD."
Eventually, Norwood's wife took her concerns to his defense attorney.
"Robert Norwood has been trying to [coerce] me into emailing you, stating that, anything from my statements to the FBI were not true," she wrote, according to court records. "However, I do not feel comfortably lying [sic] about anything. ... I do not feel comfortable in anything that he was telling me to do."
Prosecutors argued that allowing Norwood to remain out on bond endangers both his estranged wife and the integrity of their criminal case against him. They said Norwood can no longer be trusted to obey the conditions of his bond and suggested he be subject to more intense monitoring if allowed to remain free.
"The defendant should be detained pending trial," they wrote.
Norwood and his attorneys have repeatedly declined to comment publicly about his case, saying it wouldn't be appropriate while charges are pending.
But prosecutors' Jan. 13 court filing provided new details about Norwood's alleged role in the riot, citing videos that showed the Greer man reveling in the chaos.
Investigators found Norwood was one of the first in a mob of then-President Donald Trump supporters to breach the Capitol building that day — entering through a Senate Wing door around 2:23 p.m., "just ten minutes after rioters violently shattered the windows next to the door with stolen police riot shields and weapons."
Once inside, they wrote, Norwood recorded a video of himself shouting, "Well, we're in this (expletive) now. What now! This is our house. … Where you at, Nancy?"
Norwood then led a pack of rioters through House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, investigators said, stealing a coaster and filming a video of the crowd outside from her office balcony.
"It's our house (expletive)," Norwood shouted in that video, investigators said.
In another video, he yelled: "The soldiers' house! Go home police!"
Norwood later led a group as they pushed open a set of interior doors, "which allowed hundreds of rioters to stream into the U.S. Capitol Building from the outside," investigators wrote.
In other videos, Norwood taunted officers inside the building, calling them a series of expletives and threatening to "take our house back."
He left the Capitol building at 2:59 p.m., more than 30 minutes after entering it, and stole a police vest and helmet from a bin sitting outside it, investigators wrote.
Evidence published in Norwood's case showed he — like the thousands who marched on the Capitol that day — believed Trump's disproven claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election with strategic fraud in battleground states.
It took hours for Capitol security to clear the building of rioters. Congress, which had evacuated the building, returned later that evening to formally certify Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
