A self-described incel – or “involuntary celibate” – who idolised notorious mass killer Elliot Rodger has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for “terrorising” female victims.
David Kaufman, 28, of Peekskill, New York, stalked and harrassed at least three women between February 2019 and August 2020, bombarding them with death, bomb and rape threats through social media, court records show.
Authorities say Kaufman took inspiration from the mysoginistic mass murderer Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured fourteen others near a college campus in California in 2014. In a video found after his death he said he blamed women for rejecting him.
The disturbing messages sent by Kaufman included a picture of one of Rodger’s female murder victims, along with the message: “This is what happened when a woman said ‘no’ to Elliot Rodger,” according to a statement from the Southern District of New York.
In a separate message to one of his victims, Kaufman wrote: “Women have done nothing but spit in my face. Soon I’ll be getting a gun.”
Kaufman continued his campaign of harassment by setting up social media accounts under his victim’s names to impersonate them.
Kaufman was arrested in July 2020 on state criminal charges and issued with a protection order banning him from communicating with two of his victims.
Despite this, he continued to “harrass, threaten, and stalk” the two women, conducting online surveillance of one victims home and researching how to purchase an illegal firearm and assemble a semi-automatic rifle.
He was eventually re-arrested in August 2020 on federal harassment charges, and pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges Thursday.
Kaufman also went by the names David Khalifa, John Morray and Big Man in his online personas.
Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, described Kaufman as a self-confessed incel, who “expressed his hatred of women by through threats of violence.”
“The court’s sentence sends a clear message to the public that perpetrators of violence against women will be held accountable for their crimes.”
According to law enforcement, incels believe they are entitled to have sex with women and blame women for depriving them of sex.
Many incels belong to an active online community and have committed acts of violence against women around the world.
US District Judge Nelson S Román also sentenced Kaufman to three years supervised release, with the first six months to be served as home detention, and banned from contacting victims and their family members.
