Host of interracial dating podcast stalked Black women who turned him down, feds say
The host of an interracial dating podcast stalked and terrorized a Black woman he met through his media platform, according to federal prosecutors who said he made racist threats against her after she turned him down.
He’s also accused of stalking and harassing several more victims.
“I hope I ruin your life,” the California man told the woman during a three-month harassment campaign that ended with his arrest in January, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
One evening, Christopher Au-Young, 36, arrived at her Florida home in the middle of the night after prosecutors said he drove three hours to get there, although they don’t say from where.
Au-Young also publicly shared her personal information, including her address and real name — which are details she never shared with him — in videos he uploaded to YouTube, according to prosecutors.
The woman felt “so unsafe” she moved out of her home, prosecutors said.
Au-Young is accused of “targeting Black women who had rejected him, and their families,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
After another woman broke up with Au-Young, ending their consensual relationship, he is accused of stalking and threatening her and her family members, including her daughter, son and brother, prosecutors said.
“I don’t care if I go to jail over this … watch your back … Sleep with one eye open,” Au-Young is accused of writing in a social media post directed toward this woman, according to his sentencing memorandum.
He also posted a “bounty video” offering $4,000 for information that would lead to the woman’s location, prosecutors said.
Now, a judge has sentenced Au-Young to five years in prison on charges of interstate stalking and cyberstalking, the attorney’s office announced in a Nov. 6 news release.
McClatchy News contacted Au-Young’s defense attorney for comment on Nov. 6 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
On July 28, Au-Young pleaded guilty to six counts of stalking five victims who are all Black, according to the attorney’s office.
The woman he met over his podcast, referred to as “victim 1,” had “correctly believed that Au-Young nefariously targeted black women through his actions, podcast, and racist statements made online regarding Dylann Roof and mass shootings,” prosecutors said in the release.
Roof was sentenced to death in a racially motivated mass shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina, church that left nine Black congregation members dead in 2015, according to the Associated Press.
Au-Young is accused of posting racist threats and harassment against his victims in videos he shared to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Reddit, prosecutors said.
Victims ‘lived in fear’
Au-Young met the woman referred to as “victim 2,” whom he temporarily dated, through a Facebook group for veterans in August 2022, according to prosecutors.
After she ended their relationship, he is accused of publishing social media “rants,” including ones involving racial slurs, directed to the woman and her family, the sentencing memo says.
“You’ll never find peace as long as I am alive,” Au-Young is accused of writing in one post, according to the sentencing memo.
Prosecutors said Au-Young drove from California to Illinois to stalk the woman’s daughter “in person.”
He filmed himself during his road trip to Illinois and uploaded online videos in which he publicly announced his plans to vandalize the daughter’s car “in retaliation for (her mother’s) decision to break up with him,” prosecutors said.
In Illinois, he stalked the daughter for three days at her job — until a concerned individual who watched his YouTube videos notified authorities, according to prosecutors.
Law enforcement officers found Au-Young in the backseat of his car, which prosecutors said was parked outside the daughter’s workplace.
When authorities executed a search warrant of Au-Young’s car in January, they found “a baseball bat, gorilla duct tape, GPS device, female clothing, as well as a picture of (the daughter) with an ‘X’ slashed across her and the hand written words, ‘she’s next,’” the sentencing memo says.
Au-Young also stalked and made racist threats against the woman’s son, who received four mailed letters from Au-Young in which he used racial slurs and made threats to “come after” his family, according to prosecutors.
In addition, he posted racist online videos threatening the son and defaming him, prosecutors said.
As for the woman’s brother, Au-Young uploaded online videos wrongly calling him a pedophile and accusing him of molesting children with the support of his wife, according to prosecutors.
Au-Young also mailed the brother letters to his home and a church where he worked as a minister, prosecutors said.
All of Au-Young’s victims “lived in fear that (he) would harm either themselves or a family member,” prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memo.
Au-Young’s prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release, court records show.
The name of his interracial dating podcast wasn’t specified by prosecutors.
This story was originally published November 6, 2023 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Host of interracial dating podcast stalked Black women who turned him down, feds say."
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