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A congressional staffer who posed as an FBI agent using clothes and gear he bought online was fired after leading bike cops on a chase through Washington, D.C. before being caught weeks later in Georgia.
Sterling Devion Carter, 25, who worked as a staffer for Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), lost his job after impersonating law enforcement and openly carrying a firearm illegally, according to his lawyer Robert Lee Jenkins, Jr.
On Nov. 14, 2020, two police officers, who were attempting to control post-election MAGA protesters, spotted a suspicious police car with a man standing close by with a shirt that read ‘Federal Agent.’
While the police car looked legitimate to the untrained eye, complete with emergency lights, a laptop mount and a divider to contain detainees, the officers noticed the font on the license plate was wrong, according to the Daily Beast.
Sterling Devion Carter, 25, was found impersonating an FBI agent and even had a decked out police cruiser during Washington DC protests on November 14, 2020. When officers asked him for his credentials, Carter claimed he didn’t have them before flipping on his blue emergency lights and driving away
Carter, who stood next to his faux police vehicle, ‘had a full police duty belt on to include handcuffs, a pistol, two magazines and a radio with earpiece attachment,’ according to court documents.
As the officers inspected the impersonator from a distance, they noticed he made a rookie mistake: Carter placed his extra gun magazines near his gun holster, which would make it hard for law enforcement to reload with their free hand during a gunfight.
The officers were not aware of any FBI agents helping manage the protests, and noticed Carter would move away from them whenever they got close.
Real federal agents then contacted the Secret Service Joint Operations Center and asked police officers to approach Carter, who said he was ‘FBI’ while wearing a facemask and baseball cap, obscuring his identity.
When they asked him for his credentials, Carter claimed he didn’t have them before flipping on his blue emergency lights and driving away.
Police gave chase on bike, with one officer chasing him through several D.C. streets before abandoning the pursuit for ‘officer safety reasons.’
The investigation into who the mystery man was became a joint operation between Capitol Police, FBI, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the Secret Service.
Carter was a staffer in the office of Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) in August 2019 as a director of operations, where he fudged signatures and submitted unauthorized documents to dramatically increase his salary before being found out, fired and charged
The organizations were unable to track him down until one man, Secret Service Special Agent A. Pascual, acted on a long-shot hunch that eventually uncovered the ruse.
Pascual figured out Carter ‘could potentially be wearing a t-shirt manufactured by’ Florida business 13Fifty Apparel. Pascual worked with business owner, Christopher Lewis, to sift through his list of recent customers.
They deduced the shirt was relatively new as it had a ’13FA’ logo on the sleeve, which was introduced by the company within the last year.
Pascual ran the customer list through different databases and eventually narrowed down the possibilities to one ‘based on photos, race, and other demographic information.’
Pascual then used a similar process to search SignsAndTagsOnline.com for a purchase that matched the fake police cruiser’s license plate, and eventually figured out Carter used both businesses.
While they found his identity, law enforcement didn’t uncover the fact Sterling was both a wanted fugitive and a credentialed congressional staffer with security clearances until three weeks after the chase.
According to an affidavit, Secret Service agents broke into Carter’s home on New Year’s Day in 2021, where they found his Glock 19 handgun, extra magazines, ammunition and receipts for his decked-out police cruiser.
Carter was found and arrested in his parents’ home state of Georgia, before spending months in jails across Georgia, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Carter is a graduate of the University of Georgia and worked as a baseball referee in the state before landing the job in D.C.
When Rep. Schneider’s office was made aware of Carter’s escapades, they gave him the option of resigning or being fired. Carter resigned, but kept his government-issued cellphone.
The discovery of Carter’s crime let Schneider’s office to unearth even more wrongdoing: the staffer oversaw congressional staff pay and had given himself an $80,000 raise.
According to an FBI affidavit, Carter started filling out payroll authorization forms and faking the signature of Schneider’s chief of staff to get them approved in November 2019, when he was only three months into the job.
Carter used gear from apparel store 13 Fifty Apparel, which ultimately led to his discovery. A real federal agent identified his clothing and worked with the owner of the store to sift through customer records
Carter raised his annual salary from $54,000 to $138,000, which resulted in a $6,000 bonus for the month and kept up the scam for over a year, gifting himself nearly $80,000 extra.
Carter was criminally charged for that crime in February 2022, pleading guilty to theft of public funds and forcing Schneider’s office to issue a statement saying they are ‘determined to pursue justice for American taxpayers, repayment for the loss to the US Treasury, and to make right by the US Congress.’
Carter was sentenced to nine months in federal prison for the crime; his lawyer said he will soon turn himself in to serve the sentence.
‘Instead of taking this responsibility seriously, the defendant decided to selfishly use that responsibility to illegally enrich himself, including using his ill-gotten gains to further his other crimes including through the purchase of a vehicle and a federal firearms license,’ assistant US attorneys Nicole Lockhart and Molly Gaston wrote.
Carter has since ceased all social media activity. He last posted during the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot while he was still a fugitive, saying ‘I want to thank Capitol Police, Secret Service, MPD, and all the other law enforcement agencies for keeping my colleagues safe!” he wrote. “WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS!’