In NC’s US Senate race, political ads misleadingly link Cooper’s COVID-era inmate release to unrelated murders

In a pair of recently released political ads attacking former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, two North Carolina fathers describe their children’s killings.

The ads’ framing makes it sound as though Cooper agreed to release their children’s imprisoned perpetrators. That’s not what happened.

“As the governor, Mr. Cooper was allowing these criminals back on the streets,” Ronald Hayes says in one of the ads after telling about the fatal March 2024 shooting of his 23-year-old son, Shemar, in Charlotte.

On screen as Hayes speaks, Cooper’s image is superimposed over an image of jail cells while a quote from what it says is a newspaper story appears: “Roy Cooper ‘to release 3500 state prison inmates early.’”

A similar format appears in the second ad, in which Stephen Federico discusses his 23-year-old daughter, Logan, who was fatally shot during a May 2025 Columbia, South Carolina, home invasion.

“Logan was a casualty of an agenda,” Frederico says in the video. “Roy Cooper let 3,500 criminals out on the street. Eighteen of them were murderers.”

Again, Cooper’s image appears along with words attributed on-screen to WRAL-TV: “Roy Cooper: Released 3,500 North Carolina prisoners.”

NEW AD: @RoyCooperNC’s reckless policies and decision to release 3,500 violent criminals put every family in North Carolina at risk.

Stephen’s daughter Logan was a casualty of an agenda. pic.twitter.com/yPTAhaBImp

— Senate Leadership Fund (@Senate_Fund) August 19, 2026

Cooper, the Democratic nominee for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, agreed to a 2021 civil rights lawsuit settlement that led to 3,500 inmates’ release during the COVID-19 pandemic. But these ads, commissioned by Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC with the stated goal to “protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority,” fail to make clear the agreement had no bearing on either of these homicide victims’ cases.

Ronald Hayes told PolitiFact he felt his words were twisted in the ad; he never intended to suggest that his son’s killer was tied to the 2021 inmate release. “That’s not what I said, but the way they changed it up, edited it, it makes it look like … Mr. Hayes lied,” Hayes said. When he sat for the interview captured in the ad, he said, he was under the impression that he was filming an interview for an independent group creating an anti-gun violence ad.

“If I could do something to change gun violence and have my son’s name associated with it? Yes, bring it on,” Hayes said, speaking to his motivations for conducting the interview. 

Frederico said he believes the ad is a fair representation of what can happen when repeat offenders are allowed back on the streets.

The Senate Leadership Fund has committed to spend $71 million to help Republican Michael Whatley defeat Cooper in the race for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC. The group’s ad messages align with Whatley’s criticisms of Cooper, the state’s former attorney general, as soft on crime. 

As a super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, including from corporations and unions, to campaign for federal candidates..

Civil rights lawsuit led to settlement

In April 2020, a coalition of civil rights groups sued Cooper’s administration in an attempt to reduce COVID-19 infection risk in state facilities.

The ACLU of North Carolina and others said Cooper failed to protect inmates from the virus by refusing to halt jail admissions or release medically vulnerable people and inmates whose sentences were nearly up. The Cooper administration argued in court that it was already sufficiently protecting inmates from the virus. 

In June 2020, a North Carolina Superior Court judge ruled the civil rights groups were likely to win their case and ordered the parties reach a solution to keep prisoners safe — one that would include inmate reentry programs and new sentencing credit opportunities. In December 2020, the judge appointed what’s known as a special master to oversee the negotiations. 

On Feb. 25, 2021, the parties agreed to a settlement that allowed for the early release of 3,500 people in state custody — a deal Whatley says while campaigning that he never would’ve signed.

Cooper’s campaign called the Senate Leadership Fund ads “false and misleading” and said they show Whatley “using heinous crimes to boost his attacks.”

Chris Gustafson, communications director for the Senate Leadership Fund, said the group stands by its messaging, noting that people who had been convicted of murder were among those released in 2021.

The New York Post reported earlier this year that 18 of the people released early from prison were later charged with killing someone. A WRAL News analysis, however, found that a majority of them either were already out of prison before the settlement was signed, or could’ve been out of prison anyway because their sentences were scheduled to expire or because they would’ve been up for parole. Gustafson said the Senate Leadership Fund plans to “keep reminding voters of Cooper’s deadly record.” 

Suspects in Shemar Hayes’ and Logan Federico’s killings were not affected by 2021 settlement

About two weeks after Shemar Hayes was shot and killed in Charlotte on March 12, 2024, police arrested 18-year-old Tyzavian Smith at his residence in the city. Last year, Smith pleaded guilty to second degree murder in Hayes’ death. He was sentenced to at least 13 years in prison.

Smith was 15 when the Cooper administration agreed to release inmates to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection and there’s no record he was in jail at that time, said North Carolina Department of Adult Correction spokesperson Keith Acree. 

Alexander Dickey, 31, is currently awaiting trial in a Richland County, South Carolina detention center on charges he murdered Federico. Records show he has a lengthy criminal history in South Carolina, but Acree told PolitiFact there are no records he has ever been imprisoned in North Carolina.

“Therefore he could not have been and was not included in the COVID-19 settlement,” Acree said.

Between 2013 and 2014, Dickey was charged with multiple counts of burglary, breaking into cars and stealing credit cards in Lexington County, South Carolina, records show. Stronger sentencing could have kept Dickey off the streets in 2025 and prevented Logan Federico’s death, her father has said. 

Two grieving fathers, two different reactions to the ads

Stephen Federico, a Republican who supports Whatley, told PolitiFact he doesn’t believe the ad he participated in blames Cooper for his daughter’s death. Rather, he said, it illustrates the consequences of the kinds of soft-on-crime policies that he believes Cooper has adopted.

“You would have to live under a rock or just be a moron not to realize and not know that she was killed in South Carolina,” Federico said, noting the wide coverage her case received. “People know where Logan Federico was killed.”

Federico testified before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary in September 2025 and is now encouraging Congress to pass federal legislation to create a national publicly-accessible database showing the criminal history of anyone convicted of an offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding 180 days, regardless of whether the full sentence was actually imposed.

To critics of the ad, Federico said: “They can take those ads and they can read into them and they can do everything else they can, except accept the fact that soft-on-crime policies exist, and there’s certain politicians that have that in them. And Roy Cooper was one of them.”

Ronald Hayes, a Democrat who said he holds no ill will toward Cooper, has a different take. He said he feels he was misled by the people who made the ad and now others are also falling prey by its message. 

“I always knew that politics was nasty and dirty,” Hayes said. “But I don’t like to be used, and I don’t want my words to be misunderstood or misleading.” 

The Senate Leadership Fund provided PolitiFact with a photo of a document that they say Hayes signed, giving them permission to use footage from their interview with him. The group also provided photos of text messages that they say showed Hayes agreeing to a statement that was included in the group’s Aug. 5 press release about the ad. 

Hayes told PolitiFact he allowed the group to use his footage. He didn’t dispute that he signed-off on a press release. He said his wife gets on him all the time for signing forms without reading them. In this case, Hayes said, he didn’t realize that the ad would “insinuate that my son’s murderer was one of the ones that were let out.”

Hayes said he plans on voting for Cooper in November and never would have agreed to the ad if he had known it would be used against the former governor in the election.

“I’m a Democrat. I voted Democrat all my life,” he said. “And I’m gonna go there and do a commercial against him? Not in my right mind. Not in my right mind. I’d have to be swindled, hoodwinked.”