NYC man sent death threats to Charlotte woman — then showed up at her door
After having harassed, sex-shamed and violently threatened his ex-girlfriend for almost a month, Russell Martini gave her an ultimatum.
“... Tomorrow is your last chance,” the Bay Shore, N.Y., man said in an email, according to his newly unsealed federal indictment. “... we get back together willingly or I take you by force.
“... Think I’m kidding(?) good think that.”
Then Martini caught a train.
On May 6, 2022, according to the indictment, the 45-year-old rode an Amtrak from New York to Charlotte, where his former girlfriend, identified in court documents as “Jane Doe,” had moved after she ended the couple’s four-year live-in relationship that March.
He was waiting outside Doe’s apartment when she arrived on May 7. He attempted to drag her down the stairs to her car before a bystander intervened and Martini ran, the indictment claims.
A week later, Martini was booked into the Mecklenburg County jail on a host of state charges.
On Wednesday, the feds got involved. The new six-count indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Charlotte accuses Martini of cyberstalking, stalking, kidnapping and three counts of making interstate threats.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, the kidnapping charge alone carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Martini, if convicted, faces up to five years for each of the other charges.
Both the FBI and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police investigated the case.
Cyberstalking cases
In 2019, more than 3.4 million Americans 16 and older reported being stalked either physically or over the internet, according to a report by the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Women were twice as likely to be targeted as men, and in two-thirds of the cases, the victim knew the tormentor.
According to the indictment, Martini’s cyber abuse of Jane Doe started a little more than a week after she left the Long Island home the couple had shared on March 25. She moved to Charlotte on April 12.
By then, Martini had created a social media account in Jane Doe’s name, which featured a profile photograph of Doe displaying her breasts, the indictment claims. On the day Doe left the city, Martini violated an existing domestic violence protection order by sending her an email demanding that he talk with her sister.
The emails quickly escalated, with Martini repeatedly threatening to post embarrassing videos and photographs of Doe as well as sharing them with her family.
“u are going to be sorry this time. I am posting all the movies I have all over Instagram, Facebook ... Everywhere,” he wrote. “F--- you, you couldn’t even call me after all the time invested in our relationship.”
During the month leading up to his trip to Charlotte, Martini sent a series of death threats, each more lurid than the last.
“(Jane) you are going to be in a pool of blood,” he wrote. “I am killing animals right in front of you. You are hurting me so badly ... that’s it your (sic) dead. I am coming ... “
The next day Martini made good on his threat and got on the train.
After the failed kidnapping, according to the indictment, he promised more of the same.
“... Are you ready for round two? Do you still think I’m playing with you,” he said in a May 7 email to his victim, the indictment shows.
“I am going to kill you. Make this go away!!!!!”
This story was originally published February 22, 2023 at 3:59 PM.
