David Ryan Winters, a 40-year-old North Carolina man who spent nearly a decade stalking, harassing, and threatening gay men in the Raleigh-Durham area, has been sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to five counts of cyberstalking.
Prosecutors said Winters singled out the men because of their “actual and perceived gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.”
Winters pleaded guilty in September 2025. Chief Judge Richard E. Myers II sentenced him on February 24 to 44 months in prison on each count, with the sentences to run concurrently. He will also serve three years of supervised release and pay a $500 special assessment.
In a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said Winters threatened to kill specific victims and gay men in general, stating that he wanted to make national headlines, even invoking the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando. He also visited one victim’s workplace, shattered a window, and threw a metal trash can at the victim’s car. His actions forced some of those he targeted to move or take other protective measures.
“We believe in protecting all citizens who deserve to live their lives in peace,” U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said in the press release. “This antisocial behavior cannot fester without serious attention and prevention. Thanks to our dedicated law enforcement partners for taking this very seriously and putting this criminal behind bars.”
According to court records, Chief Judge Richard E. Myers II sentenced Winters on February 24 to 44 months in prison on each count, with the sentences to run concurrently. He will also serve three years of supervised release and pay a $500 special assessment.
Myers recommended that Winters undergo physical and mental health assessments and be placed at a federal facility with a medical center capable of addressing any mental health needs. He also recommended vocational training and educational opportunities while Winters serves his sentence.
Metro Weekly reached out to Winters’ public defender, Lauren Harrell Brennan, for comment, but did not receive a response as of press time.
Raleigh City Councilman Jonathan Lambert-Melton confirmed in a 2024 interview with NBC affiliate WRAL that he was one of the five victims — all identified only by their initials in court documents — who accused Winters of threatening and cyberstalking them.
In a Facebook post, Lambert-Melton said he traveled to the federal courthouse in Wilmington on February 23 to deliver a victim impact statement against Winters, whom he said “stalked, harassed, and threatened me and many others in our community for several years.”
“This chapter has been one of the hardest in my life,” he wrote, “and I’m thankful for the support of the many people who helped bring this matter to a just outcome.”
GLAAD has released new data showing that 1,042 anti-LGBTQ incidents were reported across 47 states and the District of Columbia in 2025 -- a 5% increase over the previous year, according to the organization’s ALERT Desk Anti-LGBTQ Extremism Reporting Tracker.
Anti-LGBTQ incidents were defined as "an act of harassment, threat(s), vandalism, and/or assault against an individual, group, and/or organization," with explicit evidence of anti-LGBTQ bias as a motivating factor.
The incidents included 128 acts of hateful vandalism, 76 violent assaults, 22 threats of mass violence, and 15 arson attempts.
These days, there's always a video. Some tantalizing bit of video evidence, however incriminating, is bound to turn up in a true-crime documentary like HBO's two-part Murder in Glitterball City. Not too surprisingly, the perpetrators often shot the video themselves, as is the case with the bombshell recording that opens this engaging, if lurid, exploration of a drug-fueled gay hookup that ended in murder.
The details of the 2009 killing of Jamie Carroll lean towards the sensational. In Louisville, Kentucky's historic, and historically gay, neighborhood of Old Louisville, then-couple Joey Banis and Jeff Mundt invited Carroll over for a night of party-n-play fun that turned fatal for one.
The New York Police Department has increased its security presence at New York University after the school received multiple emails containing bomb threats, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and other bigoted messages.
On January 22, shortly after 7 a.m., NYU announced that two emails had threatened violence at separate on-campus locations. One email contained a bomb threat targeting Palladium Residence Hall, while the other "included a threat to space within the Silver Center," home to the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, reports Gay City News.
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