A 38-year-old Chicago man has been sentenced to the maximum 10 years in federal prison for waging a monthslong campaign of death threats against a Mason City, Iowa woman and her family, threats that prosecutors say he continued making even after he was locked up in two different states. Shaninth Michael Ray pled guilty in April to one count of cyberstalking, admitting he used phone calls, text messages and videos across numerous platforms to threaten to kill the victim and her relatives.
According to KIMT, Ray threatened to bash the victim's face in with a rock and, on a separate occasion, displayed a gun while threatening to end her life. The Mason City Police Department investigated the case, and Ray was later charged federally under the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, docket number 24-3015, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. In his plea agreement, Ray admitted to continuously threatening to kill the victim and her family between April and October 2023.
A Sentence Stacked on Top of Another
U.S. District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand handed down the statutory maximum 10-year sentence under the federal cyberstalking law, and ordered it to run consecutive to any other prison term Ray was already serving or facing, per the Justice Department's announcement. That means Ray will serve the full decade in addition to time he owes from a separate case, rather than having the sentences overlap. Strand noted Ray's criminal history and the events in which he terrorized the victim and her family, the outlet reports.
Ray's rap sheet includes prior convictions for obstruction, harassment, interference with emergency communications, assault causing bodily harm, possession of controlled substances, and what KIMT describes as numerous domestic abuse convictions along with violations of protection orders. He was also under a no-contact order at the time of the threats. Despite that order, and despite being taken into custody, Ray continued to contact the victim while held in Minnesota and Iowa, according to the same report.
Threats That Followed the Victim Across State Lines
The case moved into federal court because Ray's threats crossed state lines electronically — the exact scenario Congress built into 18 U.S.C. § 2261A, according to California Sex Crime Defense Attorneys. That law, part of the 1996 Violence Against Women Act, was written to close the gap left when local protection orders can't reach a stalker who has crossed a state border. As Eisner Gorin LLP explains, federal jurisdiction kicks in once someone uses electronic communications across state lines in a course of conduct that puts a victim or their family in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm — precisely what prosecutors said Ray did to the Mason City woman and the people close to her.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Timmons prosecuted the case, working alongside Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Corkery, according to the Justice Department. The federal cyberstalking statute carries a mandatory minimum of one year and a maximum of 10 years, so Ray's sentence represents the harshest penalty available under the law. He'll also be required to serve three years of supervised release once he's out of prison.
A Second Federal Case in Minnesota
Iowa wasn't the only federal court dealing with Ray. He was arrested in Minnesota in October 2023 on a charge of possessing a gun as a convicted felon, and was separately prosecuted there under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), receiving an above-Guidelines-range sentence from Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, according to Justia Law. Ray challenged that sentence on appeal, arguing it was substantively unreasonable and raising Second Amendment and Commerce Clause challenges to the underlying felon-in-possession law itself.
On February 6, 2026, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments and affirmed his Minnesota conviction, ruling that federal prohibitions on felon firearm possession remain constitutional under binding circuit precedent, per the same Justia Law report. That ruling cleared the way for Judge Strand's decision months later to make the Iowa sentence consecutive rather than concurrent, ensuring Ray gets no credit toward the new term while serving what he already owes.
What a 10-Year Sentence Actually Means
Because parole was abolished in the federal system under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Ray will have to serve at least 85 percent of his 10-year term before he's eligible for release, the Justice Department noted in announcing the sentence. Federal prisoners can earn a maximum of 54 days of good-conduct credit per year, but there's no parole board that can cut the sentence short beyond that formula. Combined with the consecutive nature of the Iowa term, Ray is facing a substantial stretch behind bars beyond whatever time he already owed from Minnesota.
