The host of an interracial dating podcast will spend five years in federal prison on charges of interstate stalking and cyberstalking after pleading guilty to his threatening actions against Black women.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, court documents indicate that Christopher Au-Young, 36, engaged in a campaign of online and telephone harassment and threats against three Black women and two Black males in Florida and elsewhere since August 2022.
Au-Young intended to torment or frighten the victims as he cyberstalked, harassed and intimidated them by uploading threatening and abusive videos on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Reddit, frequently using racial slurs or other racially offensive language.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Au-Young stalked Victim 1, whom he met on his podcast, between October 2022 and his arrest in January 2023. After Victim 1 refused to visit him, Au-Young launched a campaign of intimidating her with racial threats and told her, “I hope I ruin your life.”
Au-Young publicized Victim 1’s personal information, including her home address and real name, in various YouTube videos. He also traveled three hours in the middle of the night to her house and parked outside. The victim felt so threatened she had to move.
Victim 1 rightly assumed that Au-Young nefariously targeted Black women by his conduct, podcast, and racist sentiments expressed online about Dylan Roof and mass shootings.
Victim 2 met Au-Young online in a Facebook veterans group and began a dating relationship — which she later decided to end. Au-Young then began following, threatening and harassing the woman and her family members, including her daughter (Victim 3), son (Victim 4) and brother (Victim 5).
Au-Young posted multiple videos on the internet with racist and defamatory words urging the community to avoid Victim 2. He told her he would never stop coming for her and advised her to lock her doors at night and sleep with one eye open.
Au-Young also uploaded a video in which he offered a $4,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of Victim 2.
In a subsequent video, he accused Victim 3 of homophobia and demanded that her employer fire her. Au-Young went from California to Illinois on Dec. 11, 2022, to personally stalk Victim 3. During his long drive, he uploaded videos online proclaiming his intention to vandalize Victim 3’s vehicle to retaliate for her mother’s decision to break up with him.
On Dec. 12, 2022, Au-Young arrived in Illinois and stalked Victim 3 for three days at her workplace.
A concerned YouTube viewer notified authorities, who found Au-Young in the backseat of his vehicle parked near the victim’s workplace entrance.
This is not how you protect Black women
Like with Victims 2 and 3, Au-Young made racist, threatening and defamatory films on the internet against Victim 4. In addition to the videos, Au-Young mailed approximately four written letters to Victim 4, calling him and his family racial epithets, including the N-word, and threatening to come after them.
Au-Young falsely claimed in internet videos that Victim 5 was a pedophile. The recordings displayed the man’s photographs and accused him of being a dangerous man who raped multiple children.
Au-Young also wrote to Victim 5’s home and the church where he served as a minister with the accusations, claiming the man’s wife, also named in the videos, assisted in the abuse. All of the allegations were baseless.
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