A 2021 Dodge Charger Scat Pack in Indigo Blue. File photo, not the car in this case. Photo: MercurySable99 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Julius Woodfork, 22, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, is accused in court records of stealing a blue 2021 Dodge Charger Scat Pack valued at $50,000 on July 18 by getting into the car’s computer system and making an unauthorized key work. WCTI in Jacksonville reported on Oct. 27 that the records also allege he conspired with another person. He was arrested Oct. 20 in Onslow County and is held on a $75,000 secured bond. These are allegations, and he has not been convicted. WCTI’s report included no statement from Woodfork or an attorney, and it listed his first court appearance for Oct. 27 without giving the outcome.
The chase that ended on South Queen Street
The theft charge is the second act. WCTI reported on July 27 that around 2:30 a.m. the previous Saturday, Onslow County Communications put out a lookout for a stolen blue Charger reported out of Jacksonville. Onslow County deputies tried to stop it and ended the pursuit after losing sight of it. Lenoir County deputies later spotted the car on U.S. Highway 258 South near Albrittons Road, the driver refused a traffic stop, and a second pursuit began. Kinston police laid spike strips on South Queen Street, which disabled the car, and the driver ran into a wooded area. A Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office K-9 team tracked Woodfork, then 21, and took him into custody. He had minor injuries and was treated at the scene.
Lenoir County charged him with felony flee to elude arrest, felony possession of stolen goods, possession of burglary tools and two counts of injury to real property, and he was held on a $100,000 secured bond. Deputies also seized multiple key-cloning devices found in the car and along the route he ran. Jacksonville police and the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office had obtained felony warrants in the theft investigation, WCTI reported then. The theft date in the October court records, July 18, falls a week before that Saturday chase, and WCTI’s reports do not explain the gap.
A 1979 computer statute is carrying the felony
The new Onslow County charges, as WCTI listed them, are felony motor vehicle larceny, breaking or entering a motor vehicle, felony computer access, felony conspiracy and tampering with a vehicle. The computer charge is the unusual one. WCTI did not say which subsection of G.S. 14-454 applies, but the North Carolina statute splits in two. Subsection (a) covers accessing a computer to carry out a scheme to defraud or to obtain property through false pretenses, and it is a Class G felony when the damage or the value of what was obtained is over $1,000. Otherwise it is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Subsection (b), unauthorized access for any other purpose, is a Class 1 misdemeanor outright. A felony computer count therefore points to subsection (a), and a $50,000 car clears the $1,000 line by a wide margin.
The statute’s history line begins in 1979, and its only definition covers what it means to “access or cause to be accessed.” It never defines “computer.” Nothing in the text says whether a car’s control modules and key-programming functions fit the word, so that reach is a question for a court if a defendant challenges it.
The larceny count turns on value as well. G.S. 14-72 makes larceny of goods worth more than $1,000 a Class H felony, and the $50,000 figure in the court records, as WCTI relayed it, sits far above that line. Breaking or entering a motor vehicle is a separate offense under G.S. 14-56.
Other 2026 Charger thefts on Backfire News
Backfire News has covered electronic Charger thefts this year. Our report on a Boardman, Ohio, dealership theft described a 2021 Charger that left the lot after about 37 minutes of flickering headlights and laid out a relay-attack explanation that was the author’s reading, not a police finding. A Memphis owner found his stolen 2014 Corvette with a non-original key inside. The North Carolina records as WCTI relayed them describe a different allegation, a key made to work through the car’s computer, and say nothing public about the method.
Two counties, two sets of charges
Woodfork now faces Lenoir County’s July charges and Onslow County’s new ones. WCTI reported him in the Onslow County Jail on the $75,000 bond and did not say what became of the $100,000 Lenoir County bond or give a court date after Oct. 27.
Should North Carolina keep charging key-programming thefts under a 1979 computer-access law, or write a separate vehicle offense that names the device?
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