A 30-year-old West Palm Beach woman is behind bars after deputies say she unleashed a torrent of death threats against a married man she had an affair with — and his wife. Jamie Nicolelee Kingston was arrested on September 30 and booked into the Palm Beach County Main Detention Center, facing felony charges of making written or electronic threats to kill or do bodily harm and using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony.
According to an affidavit cited by the Tampa Free Press, Kingston was identified as an exotic dancer at a local club who had previously carried on an affair with a married West Palm Beach man. The man told investigators he cut off contact with Kingston on September 25, and the breakup set off an argument conducted through the texting app TextNow that same day.
Per the affidavit, Kingston's messages targeted the man's wife directly, with texts reading “she needs to die” and “i will f—-ing slit her throat.” She allegedly followed up with additional threats — “shes done,” “you just f—-ed up,” and “say bye bye to your little family” — along with a message vowing, “ill destroy your little f—ing freak show family,” all sent the same day, per the affidavit.
Threats Escalated to the Man Himself
The following day, September 26, Kingston allegedly turned her threats on the man directly, texting “let me catch you in person. i'll f—-ing rip you apart” and “i want nothing but the worst for you if i see you in person, i'm f—ing killing you,” according to the affidavit described in the Tampa Free Press report.
Sheriff's Office investigators linked the TextNow number to Kingston, noting that she had frequently and recently used that same number in several earlier law-enforcement reports. That pattern of prior contact with police is consistent with how digital harassment cases are often resolved: investigators frequently trace virtual text numbers back to specific suspects by matching phone numbers and IP addresses against existing police records and prior agency incident reports, according to Rexxfield. TextNow itself requires law enforcement to submit formal legal process — such as court-ordered subpoenas or search warrants — through a dedicated portal before releasing subscriber account details, IP login records, and message logs, per TextNow's own policy. Authorities ultimately obtained an arrest warrant for Kingston based on that identification work.
Bond Set at $40,000, No-Contact Order Issued
A judge set bond at $35,000 for the threat charge and $5,000 for the communications charge on October 1, bringing Kingston's total bond to $40,000, where she remains held. The judge also ordered Kingston to have no contact with the victim. She has a hearing scheduled for October 30 in Palm Beach County.
The felony charge of making a written or electronic threat to kill or do bodily harm, under Florida Statute § 836.10, is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in state prison, 15 years of probation, and a $10,000 fine, according to the Sammis Law Firm. The secondary charge, using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony under Florida Statute § 934.215, is a third-degree felony carrying up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, per Buda Law.
Why Threats to the Wife Count as Felonies
A key legal detail helps explain why messages aimed at the man's wife, rather than the man himself, carry the same weight under the law. In October 2021, the Florida Legislature amended Statute § 836.10 to remove the requirement that a written threat be sent directly to the intended victim, making such threats prosecutable even when directed through or at family members, according to Richard Hornsby Law. That same amendment distinguishes felony threat cases from lesser charges: simple harassment or cyberstalking without an explicit threat to kill or injure is only a first-degree misdemeanor under Florida Statute § 784.048, carrying up to a year in jail, while an explicit threat to kill or inflict bodily harm elevates the offense to a second-degree felony, the Sammis Law Firm notes.
Florida's Criminal Punishment Code ranks written threats under Statute § 836.10 as a Level 6 severity offense, while two-way device misuse under Statute § 934.215 is a Level 4 offense — a scoring system that guides judicial sentencing points and factored into the bond amounts set in Kingston's case, per Richard Hornsby Law. The statute itself dates back more than a century: originally enacted in 1913 to cover physical pen-and-paper threats, it has been amended four times to encompass emerging communication technologies, from telegraphs and radios to internet messaging and mobile texting applications, according to the Sammis Law Firm.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Palm Beach County
Kingston's arrest adds to a string of felony written-threat prosecutions across Palm Beach County this year involving threats issued via social media, text messaging, and emergency dispatch systems. Hoodline previously reported on a Facebook threat case involving a West Palm Beach man charged under the same statute, as well as a separate case in which a man hid a gun in a wooden box amid stalking and written-threat allegations. A third case saw a man arrested after an Instagram threat in May, and a Palm Springs man was arrested outside a Wawa in September after texting a crisis line about an AR-15 threat.
