Overview

• Maurice Hopkins, 32, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan C. Rodriguez to interfering with federally protected activities after targeting eight people in a Charlotte restaurant.
• Plea documents describe Hopkins confronting a group on June 8, 2024, asking if they were American, using slurs tied to race, national origin and religion, and telling them to go back to their country.
• Court records state he threatened to retrieve a gun and kill the victims, left, then returned minutes later with a loaded AR-15–style rifle, prompting the group to flee through a rear door.
• The offense carries a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison, Hopkins remains in federal custody, and a sentencing date has not been set.
• The FBI Charlotte Field Office investigated, and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are handling the case.