2 plead guilty to cyberstalking following death of victim
Two people from South Carolina have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking following the death of the victim from Charlotte.
Tysten Anthony Cullon, 26, and Jade Ashlynn Stone, 25, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, targeting a vulnerable victim and his family members, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
FBI Special Agent James C. Barnacle, Jr. identified the victim as C.T.
According to reports, C.T. had an intellectual disability and was classified as Educable Mentally Disabled. The victim was supported by his family and did not live on his own, but did have a job at a Charlotte fast-food restaurant, officials said.
READ: New video shows moments before police shooting in South Carolina beach town
The suspects admitted to cyberstalking C.T. in court, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte.
The defendants used a stolen phone to send 'harassing and intimidating' text messages to the victim's family members, reports said. They threatened to provide 'salacious claims' to C.T.'s employer unless they were paid.
The claims included that C.T. was a pervert, he harassed girls, and paid girls for sexual pictures.
Emotional distress caused by the threat resulted in C.T. dying by suicide, prosecutors said.
Both of the suspects are in custody and are facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
A sentencing date has not been set.
WATCH: New video shows moments before police shooting in South Carolina beach town
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Police charge man with providing fertility clinic bombing materials
Daniel Jongyon Park of Kent, Wash., was arrested Tuesday on charges of providing material support to the man who bombed a Palm Springs, Calif., fertility clinic in May. Photo courtesy of the FBI June 4 (UPI) -- Federal officials have arrested a Washington man they said provided "significant quantities" of explosive materials to the man who attacked a California fertility clinic in a suicide bombing. The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California charged Daniel Jongyon Park of Kent, Wash., with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Officials arrested him Tuesday night shortly after he arrived on a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Park had been deported from Poland where he traveled to in the days after the May 17 attack. Police said Edward Bartkus of Twentynine Palms, Calif., attacked the American Reproductive Centers location in Palm Springs, Calif., using a vehicle-borne bomb. He was allegedly motivated by his anti-natalist views that people shouldn't be brought into the world without their consent. The Justice Department said Park shared Bartkus' views and bought and shipped more than 200 pounds of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus' home. Park also joined Bartkus in Twentynine Palms, where the two allegedly conducted experiments on how to build explosives using the chemicals. Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked the Polish government for assisting in returning Park to the United States to face charges. "Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity," she said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
2 Veterans Tied to 'Nazi White Nationalist Efforts' Allegedly Stole Gear from Army Base, Beat Soldier with Hammer
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday accused two military veterans of assaulting a soldier and stealing equipment from an Army special operations compound in Washington state, a brazen break-in that ended with a cache of weapons and Nazi paraphernalia discovered in one of their homes. State and federal police arrested Charles Ethan Fields and Levi Austin Frakes after executing a warrant Monday for alleged assault, robbery and theft of government property, according to the complaint shared with by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Washington. Prosecutors say Fields and Frakes entered Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Sunday evening through the main gate and made their way to a facility used by Charlie Company, 75th Ranger Regiment. Dressed in Ranger fitness training attire and wearing masks, the pair allegedly stole military gear after bludgeoning a soldier with a hammer and fleeing the scene. Read Next: Army Hits Annual Recruiting Goal Months Ahead of Schedule Before being attacked, the soldier, who was not identified in court documents, confronted the veterans, who were in the process of stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of ballistic helmets, rifle plates and communications equipment. As the soldier was questioning the pair, ordering them to remove their masks, one of them attacked him, striking him in the head and torso with a hammer. The soldier fought off the attacker, taking the hammer, but "surrendered" as the other assailant was brandishing a knife, according to court records. The soldier was treated at the base hospital after a "large amount of blood loss," images in the complaint show. The pair allegedly stole $14,000 worth of gear, but dropped much of it at the scene when fleeing. Law enforcement discovered blood on their rucksacks and boots, according to the complaint. The Army Criminal Investigation Division requested a search warrant after discovering the rucksacks filled with the equipment that they left behind, as well as the hat that bore Fields' last name. During the search of one of the homes, the CID seized 35 weapons, including rifles, pistols, short-barreled rifles, an MG32 machine gun and suppressors -- some of which appeared to have been produced using a 3D printer -- along with night vision equipment, body armor, flashbang grenades, smoke canisters and blasting caps. Images from the complaint also show Nazi and white supremacist paraphernalia in one of the residences, including flags with a swastika and "SS" lightning bolts, murals and literature "in every bedroom and near several stockpiles of weapons and military equipment." Investigators said that one of the veterans admitted in an interview to stealing military property from the Ranger compound for "about two years" to later sell or trade. Fields and Frakes registered a company in Washington billed as a "defense manufacturing and training" service that featured imagery associated with Nazi ideology in its logo, according to the website and public business records. The company did not return a request for comment. In social media, they listed several military units as "clients," including the 75th Ranger Regiment, U.S. Army Special Forces, 1st Marine Division and the Coast Guard. contacted the units on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Ranger Regiment acknowledged the inquiry, but referred the publication to Army Special Operations Command. A spokesperson for the Coast Guard said that it "has never contracted with or been a client of" their company. The other units did not respond by deadline. Fields served a short stint as an infantryman in the active-duty Army from 2017 to 2021, deploying twice to Afghanistan and leaving the service with the rank of sergeant, service records show. The complaint notes both suspects previously served in the military, citing Pentagon records, and that the soldier who tried to confront them learned Fields had been assigned to the Ranger battalion he tried to steal from sometime around 2021. contacted the Marine Corps regarding Frakes' service, as a social media page shows that he served in the branch for four years. A spokesperson could not provide his service record, but noted that "there is a Marine veteran with that name." The two men were booked into Thurston County Jail, and a judge set bail for each at $500,000 on Tuesday during a preliminary appearance, according to the complaint. contacted the county public defense office that has taken on their cases, according to its director, Patrick O'Connor, but their attorneys had not been assigned as of Wednesday pending charges. The Thurston County Sheriff's Office did not respond to the publication on Wednesday, but the elected sheriff, Derek Sanders, said on social media that an FBI SWAT team executed the warrant. "The suspects identified in this case were actively involved in Nazi white nationalist efforts," he said. The county lists both veterans as being charged with unlawful possession of a short-barreled rifle and explosives. The military has faced persistent challenges in securing its weapons and equipment, including a notable incident in November when 31 M17 pistols went missing from Fort Benning, Georgia; only three have been recovered. A 2021 investigation by The Associated Press revealed that at least 1,900 firearms disappeared from military stockpiles during the 2010s, with some later turning up at crime scenes. The losses have been blamed on a range of security lapses, including gaps in surveillance and poor recordkeeping. Of the attack on the soldiers, Luke Baumgartner, a research fellow with George Washington University's Program on Extremism, said that "they were not afraid to use violence in order to gain access to the equipment that they were looking for." "Veterans who end up becoming involved in these extremist movements often look backward toward their military service as a source of inspiration," he said, citing cases such as Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing and also stole military equipment from a National Guard armory. "They're just following in their footsteps; they're continuing this pattern that we've seen before," he said. The complaint said that the pair were scanned into the main gate of JBLM around 8 p.m. Sunday and that they had allegedly used bolt cutters to break a lock into the Ranger compound. Investigators tied Frakes' vehicle to one seen on surveillance cameras on base. It was unclear how they had apparently easy access to the gate and how the unit accounted for its equipment if thefts had been occurring for two years. "That tells me that there is a lack of proper accountability for sensitive items and military property going on within that unit," Baumgartner, an Army veteran, added. The Pentagon has entirely abandoned addressing far-right extremism in the military community under the Trump administration. While there is no evidence service members or veterans are more likely to be radicalized, experts have said they are force multipliers to extremist organizations given their inherent credibility and tactical knowledge. Related: What the Pentagon Has, Hasn't and Could Do to Stop Veterans and Troops from Joining Extremist Groups
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
DHS orders officers to focus on overstayed visas
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered the staff of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to focus on overstayed visas, according to a Wednesday press release from USCIS. Over the weekend, an attack occurred on demonstrators in Boulder, Colo., pressing for the return of Israeli hostages in Gaza. The suspect in the attack, Mohamed Soliman, was said by the White House to be an 'illegal alien' who overstayed a visa. The USCIS press release noted the attack and Soliman himself, saying he 'had overstayed his visa in the U.S. and remained in the country unlawfully since 2022.' 'There is NO room in the United States for the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers. Anyone who thinks they can come to America and advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again,' DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the release. 'You are not welcome here. We will find you, deport you, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,' she added. Soliman was charged with a federal hate crime after admitting he had spent a year planning the attack and singled out the demonstrators, whom he called 'Zionists,' according to the FBI. 'FBI agents are on the ground in Colorado following what appears to be a horrific anti-Semitic attack. My heart and my prayers are with the Jewish community,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday in a post on the social platform X. 'We will not tolerate this hatred and we will put the perpetrator of this violence behind bars,' she added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
