A 49-year-old Raleigh man appeared in federal court Friday at 1:30 p.m. on charges that he transmitted threats in interstate commerce, accused of sending hundreds of messages to a professional singer and songwriter that included explicit threats to kill her and references to killing children. Kevin Edral Douglas allegedly sent the messages between roughly June and September 3, and the woman identified in court records only as EC told investigators she feared he might carry out the threats.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, FBI Special Agent Anthony Patrick found probable cause that Douglas knowingly transmitted the threatening communications, per an affidavit cited by Cops & Congress. The FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip alleging more than 300 threatening messages, and the same reporting notes EC received hundreds of messages from Douglas between August 29 and September 3, which she believed were credible and which left her with significant distress and sleeplessness.
Douglas, who lives in Raleigh, allegedly sent one message stating, “This alone will get you killed and thrown away,” the affidavit indicates. The messages were reportedly sent through Big Cartel, an online commerce platform based in Utah — a detail that, per federal cybercrime guidelines, is enough to satisfy the interstate-commerce element required for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), since electronic communications routed through out-of-state servers automatically cross state lines regardless of where sender and recipient actually live.
A Chatbot, a Marriage Request, and Messages to the Vatican
Investigators say Douglas created an artificial-intelligence chatbot that listened to everything spoken inside his home, translated spoken words into Russian, and then played the translated words back through speakers using the singer’s voice. When earlier email accounts he used were blocked, Douglas allegedly created new ones to keep sending messages. During a September 3 interview with federal agents, he reportedly acknowledged owning an email account allegedly used to send threats and confirmed sending messages that were shown to him, per the affidavit…