YouTuber Erik Conover Tried to Plead Insanity After Taking Police on a 28-Mile Car Chase

On March 15, 2025, New Hampshire police tried to pull over a man for going 55 in a 35-mph zone in Bartlett. The driver stopped eight miles later, but things quickly escalated when he rammed his Jeep into an officer, tossing him 40 feet and injuring his leg. The driver then pumped his fist through the sunroof as he led local and state police on a 28-mile chase.

The driver was Erik Conover, then 35, a real estate influencer with nearly 3 million YouTube subscribers. Conover was used to showing his viewers lavish homes around the world, but now he found himself sitting in jail as he faced attempted murder charges.

"If anyone dares to try to test my mental competence, I will eviscerate every single person with my intelligence right now. And that's not being egotistical,” he threatened at his arraignment.

Conover would claim the evidence against him was “falsified,” and police were targeting him because he was a public figure. He also denied allegations that he was arrested days earlier for drunk driving, claiming he had been sober for more than four years.

Fast forward to September 2025, and Conover had sought an insanity plea while citing a bipolar disorder diagnosis and alleging he thought the officer planned to hurt him when he approached the car. The attempted murder charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence, though Conover still faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon and reckless conduct with a deadly weapon.

“The public thinks the insanity defense is much easier to meet than it actually is. They kind of feel it's a get out of jail free card. In reality, you have to lack the capacity to appreciate that what you did was wrong,” psychiatrist Sandip Buch tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

An insanity plea seemed to be a long shot: Conover spent 30 days in a mental health facility in April, only to be found mentally fit to stand trial the next month. His lawyer planned to present medical evidence to prove he was insane at the time. But would it work?

Conover called the ordeal a “massive misunderstanding,” but Bartlett police Sergeant Brian Moffitt laid out a different story. He said Officer Cameron Emmett was conducting an unrelated traffic stop when he heard Conover speed past due to the loud exhaust on his Jeep.

Conover not only failed to stop, but he also continued speeding and even brake-checked Emmett. Conover eventually stopped his Jeep in an oncoming lane, leading Emmett to exit his cruiser. Conover then rammed into the officer as he ordered him to exit his vehicle.

“We’re very fortunate that an amateur drone operator was in the air when he saw the interaction and was able to capture it on video,” Moffitt told the court.

Emmett suffered minor leg injuries from flying over the hood of Conover’s car. Magistrate Judge Mark Howard characterized Conover’s alleged actions as “egregious” and “extremely dangerous” and denied bail.

Conover’s YouTube page describes him as living in New York City “while touring the finest architecture around the world.” But in March 2025, Conover faced years living in a New Hampshire prison as authorities said they had ample evidence to land a conviction.

For Conover, an insanity plea likely meant the difference between going to prison or a medical facility.

“New Hampshire is the only state that uses a specific type of insanity standard called the Durham Rule, which is a very broad, antiquated version of the insanity defense,” Colleen Berryessa, an associate professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

Unlike other states, a defendant in New Hampshire can be acquitted if their illegal actions are determined to be the result of a mental disease. More than half the other states use a form of the M'Naghten Rule, which Berryessa says requires the defendant “to show their mental abnormality or defect prevented them from knowing right and wrong.”

The M'Naghten Rule is sometimes combined with the irresistible impulse test to determine whether the defendant’s impulses were so strong that they could not prevent their actions even if they could discern right from wrong.

“A false perception people have is that if you are found not guilty by reason of insanity, then you just leave the courtroom and then you're out free. That's not how it goes,” Berryessa says. “A person would be put into an institution for a period of time and revisited while undergoing treatment, including medication and therapy.”

Conover’s attorney, Nicholas Howie, said he would prove his client’s mental state at the time of the police chase and hit-and-run absolved him of criminal responsibility. Howie also told the court that his case would include findings from a clinical and forensic psychologist who is experienced in determining competency.

“Dr. Shannon Bader would state that the events set forth in the above-captioned matter were the result of Erik Conover suffering from a major mental illness at the time,” Howie wrote in the September 2025 notice.

The defense also outlined how Conover was diagnosed with mood disorders in 2020. By 2024, he was on medications and stable. Days before the run-in with police, he was instructed to stop taking the medications to undergo a brain scan. His attorneys said the turn of events left him manic, with his mental state further worsening due to marijuana use.

“In mania, people have a very inflated self-esteem. They act very recklessly and engage in risk-taking behavior. A lot of people spend excessively or act out sexually. Mania in severe forms can lead to psychosis where people have paranoid delusions or hear voices,” Buch explains.

Conversely, prosecutors characterized Conover’s insanity plea as solely strategic. They called attention to recorded phone calls from jail in which Conover told his father that pleading mental illness would land him in a facility instead of prison. He was also recorded telling his mother to send an attorney a ChatGPT-crafted email titled, "YouTuber has mental health crisis."

"The news has slandered my name, and if you do a PR thing on a mental health crisis, you know what that makes people feel? Empathy. And you can’t hate people you feel empathetic towards,” he stated, according to WMUR.

Conover was set to stand trial in January 2026. By December 2025–months after pursuing an insanity defense–Conover pleaded guilty to two felony charges of first-degree assault and reckless conduct and accepted a plea deal for a four-to-10-year prison sentence.

“If someone has a paranoid delusion that someone was trying to harm them, they [can] still know that hitting someone is against the law. If people do anything to insinuate they understood what they're doing is wrong, then generally it doesn't meet an insanity defense,” Buch says. “If you're trying to evade the police after committing a crime, it means they have the capacity to understand that what they've done has not conformed to the law.”

However, the prosecution and defense agreed that Conover’s actions stemmed from a mental health episode sparked by him stopping his medications. The judge criticized the plea agreement, saying he hoped it stipulated a harsher sentence.

At sentencing, Conover apologized to Emmett, who had returned to duty. Emmett also denounced the plea deal, stating it downplayed Conover’s actions.

“This is not the outcome I hoped for, and it is not the outcome that reflects the severity of what happened,” Emmett said. “A police officer being run down intentionally during the course of duty is not a minor incident.”

Conover is currently being housed at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men. His earliest release date is scheduled for April 2029.