Haddonfield 'Dating Strategist' Charged In Capitol Riots

NEW JERSEY – A South Jersey man who describes himself as a "dating strategist" has been charged in connection with the Capitol riots.

Federal authorities filed a complaint on Wednesday against Patrick. A. Stedman, 32, of Haddonfield, saying he bragged about "storming the Capitol" and encouraged people to join him.

Stedman was charged with unlawful entry of a restricted building and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to the complaint.

Stedman self identifies as a dating and relationship strategist on his Twitter page under the display name of "Pat Stedman." The complaint says he's a frequent Twitter user and, as of Jan. 10th, had 25,600 followers.

In addition to relationship strategy advice, Stedman posts and comments regularly on political topics. Stedman posts a “live stream video” called “COVID/CABAL” on his Twitter account in which he addresses a wide variety of topics, the complaint says.

The FBI received a tip from a source on Jan. 7th that Stedman posted a video to his Twitter account at 3:52 p.m. on Jan. 6th and discussed his participation in the riots:

“I was pretty much in the first wave, and we broke down the doors and climbed up the back part of the Capitol building and got all the way into the chambers,” according to the complaint.

The source, a college classmate of Stedman, was interviewed by the FBI on Jan. 19th and was “100 percent confident” the person posting on @Pat_Stedman on Twitter was identical to the Patrick Stedman that he has known since college, according to the complaint.

Another source submitted a tip to the FBI’s online tip portal on Jan. 8th about Stedman posting a video to his Twitter account @Pat_Stedman “storming the Capital, then bragging about if after," according to the complaint.

The source claimed Stedman had been “encouraging his tens of thousands of fans to join him in DC for weeks.”

On Dec. 30th, Stedman posted to his Twitter account a message about going to Washington, DC on January 6th. He instructed his followers to “DM” (direct message) him if they were planning on going because he was assembling a “team,” the complaint says.

The complaint includes screenshots of Stedman's Twitter posts.

On January 6th, Stedman posted on Twitter videos that appear to have been taken from inside the US Capitol. In the first image, Stedman posted, “Backwards hat (Antifa) right where they were breaking into the main area of Congress,” the complaint said.

In another video, Stedman posted: “I can tell you having been in the Capitol these videos the MSM (mainstream media) is showing of fights between cops and protestors are unlike any of the dynamics I saw. Does this look like a “tense” scene to you?”