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
The affidavit described a bizarre pattern behind the threats: Douglas said he began listening to the singer's music about four years earlier and wanted to marry her, and he sent messages or prayers to the Vatican expressing that hope, later attempting to retract the prayers after learning she was married. He also subscribed to EC's Patreon account and at one point offered $500 for a virtual dinner, according to the reporting.
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.
A U.S. magistrate judge approved the criminal complaint and arrest-warrant application on September 4, and federal authorities rearrested Douglas the following morning after he had sought — and was denied — permission to leave the Eastern District of North Carolina. Douglas was placed on federal supervised release on September 2, 2025, following a prior federal sentence, and under that release he was required to obtain permission before leaving the district.
A Federal Statute With a High Bar for Prosecutors
The new charge, transmitting threats in interstate commerce under 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), carries a statutory maximum of up to five years in federal prison and fines of up to $250,000, according to the Legal Information Institute. But prosecutors face a demanding legal standard: under Supreme Court precedent set in Elonis v. United States in 2015 and Counterman v. Colorado in 2023, the government cannot convict based solely on how a reasonable person might perceive a message — it must prove Douglas's subjective intent or at least recklessness regarding the threatening nature of his words, per Justia.
Separately, federal sentencing law under 18 U.S.C. § 3583 allows a judge to revoke Douglas's supervised release upon finding a violation by a preponderance of the evidence, which could add imprisonment on top of any sentence tied to the new charge, according to the Legal Information Institute. Douglas is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
A Long History Across Wake County and Beyond
This is not Douglas's first brush with threat-related charges in the region. The Cary Police Department investigated a 2023 case in which Douglas was charged with making threats to shoot or injure children, and the Raleigh Police Department and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force also investigated that matter, according to the Cops & Congress reporting. At the time, Douglas was living at an Extended Stay America hotel in Cary — a location that court records and reporting noted sat approximately 250 feet from a daycare facility, according to ABC11.
The tactical response to that 2023 arrest was substantial: Cary police activated the Wake Regional SWAT team, a multi-agency tactical unit drawing officers from Cary, Morrisville, and Holly Springs, after NCMEC cybertips reported threats involving an active shooter, according to Randolph County News. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received the threatening communications through its CyberTipline system, a clearinghouse that processed more than 1.4 million reports of online enticement and child-safety threats in 2025 alone, per MissingKids.org data.
Douglas pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of threatening children through the cybertip reporting line, and court proceedings at the time revealed he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was initially declared incompetent to stand trial before being reassessed and entering his plea, according to Cary Spotlight. As part of that plea deal, additional threat counts were scheduled to be dismissed at sentencing.
Douglas's history of threatening behavior reportedly dates back to about 2002 and spans at least eight states, according to the Cops & Congress reporting on his case. In 2016, he was convicted of communicating interstate threats to kill a person at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and was released from federal prison that same year. Records show he was also charged with state cyberstalking three times over a 15-year period before 2023, though each of those local cases was dismissed, according to Front Page Detectives. A separate 2004 incident in Wake County saw Raleigh Police deploy their Selective Enforcement Unit after Douglas barricaded himself inside his residence while officers tried to serve an arrest warrant, dropping a rambling pro se legal filing out a second-story window — a misdemeanor resisting-an-officer conviction from that standoff was later reversed by the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Resources for Those Facing Threats
The FBI recommends that anyone receiving threatening messages preserve them rather than delete them, saving screenshots, emails, usernames, phone numbers, timestamps and URLs, and notify law enforcement. The bureau also advises reviewing what personal information is publicly available online, limiting interaction with unknown or unsolicited people on social media, limiting location-sharing, and keeping phones, computers and apps updated with unique passphrases and multifactor authentication.
Threats associated with potential federal crimes can be reported through local FBI field offices or at tips.fbi.gov. The Office for Victims of Crime recommends working with law enforcement, a victim advocate, or a victim-service provider when stalking or intimidation is involved, and courts may restrict an alleged offender's contact with a victim through protective or no-contact orders. VictimConnect, reachable at 855-484-2846, connects victims with local services and safety-planning assistance, and anyone facing immediate danger should call 911.
