STOKESDALE, N.C. (WGHP) — A grand jury has indicted a Stokesdale man on four counts related to threats of violence he allegedly made against an FBI agent.
Stephen Jike Williams was arrested this month after allegedly threatening an FBI agent who came to ask him questions about an email that they believed he sent, threatening a progressive nonprofit.
Who is Stephen Jike Williams?
Williams, 43, is a resident of Stokesdale. He has a fiancée who spoke on his behalf during his first court appearance. A Spotify account indicates that Williams makes country music under the name Jike Williams.
The court documents show he was allegedly affiliated with two TikTok accounts: “jikewilliamsofficial” and “jikewilliams.” Both appear to have been suspended, but a TikTok “stitch,” a video in which a user re-posts another user’s video adding their own reply, shows someone reacting to a video posted to the “jikewilliams” account claiming that Trump won the 2020 election.
Conspiracy theories such as election denial seem to be a recurrent theme in his TikToks, according to the court documents and responses still left on TikTok.
He also espouses the conspiracy theory that the FBI are “foreign agents” who have betrayed the Constitution, accusing them of sedition and linking them to the baseless claims of election fraud.
A video he posted on one of his TikTok accounts was titled “On the back of you (sic) money the pyramid the saying underneath it says ‘new world order’ and the eye on top of the pyramid is for the Secret society.”
The New World Order is a conspiracy theory that purports that a tyrannical, socialist “one-world” government has taken over and schemes to eliminate the United States with the help of collaborators within the government.
This is done, according to the conspiracy, through “repressive measures, as well as manufactured crises such as terrorist attacks and pandemics.”
People who believe in the New World Order think that “globalists” are working to disarm Americans so they can be enslaved. “New World Order” conspiracists also say that the government will declare martial law and engage in mass gun confiscation. The “New World Order” has its origins in the antisemitic conspiracy “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
He also expresses the sentiment that vaccines are killing children in their sleep and that they are being used to de-populate the world. This belief has also been featured in a recently released “documentary,” “Died Suddenly,” which has been accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine.
Many of the views are also expressed by followers of QAnon, a big tent conspiracy that purports that a cabal of elites controls the world.
Sept. 2022
On Sept. 18, Williams emailed The Good Information Foundation, a liberal non-profit fact-checking organization.
On Sept. 19, an employee saw the email and reported it to law enforcement.
According to court documents, the email read:
“You are hereby ordered by we the people under the laws of the constitution to cease and desist all defamation and slander of Maga Republicans (sic) and Donald Trump. This is Treason an act of war and we will treat you accordingly. You have till the end of the month to print a retraction whistle blow on yourself or I will shut you down personally.
“Lethal action will be necessary if any physical detainment is attempted when I shut you down. Leave peacefully or your children will forget who you are.”
This email was passed from The Good Information Foundation’s lawyer to an FBI Special Agent, who opened an investigation due to the threatening language of the email.
Oct. 3
A female FBI agent and a Guilford County Sheriff’s Office deputy attempted to interview Williams at his home in Stokesdale. When they arrived on the property, Williams allegedly ran towards the officer’s vehicle and shouted, “Why the (expletive) are you on my property?”
The special agent identified herself and showed her credentials, and documents say that Williams then got enraged. He began yelling that the DOJ and the FBI hired a Russian agent to “steal the election” and told them to get off of his property multiple times.
The deputy told Williams he worked for the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, but Williams was mostly focused on the special agent, who he was allegedly screaming at. She asked him why he was so upset but he continued to scream at her until the deputy asked him to stop, but he was still irate, the document says.
Williams allegedly called the female special agent a “b—-” multiple times and told the deputy to arrest her and “have her executed for treason and sedition.”
“I’m going to take you out,” he told the special agent.
When asked to clarify what he meant by that, documents state that Williams said, “You know what I meant.”
Williams was advised that if he was threatening to kill or harm a federal agent he would be charged. He did not clarify his comment about taking the Special Agent out. He asked if they had a search warrant and when they said that they didn’t, he continued to demand they get off his property.
The agent and deputy left Williams’ property without interviewing him about his emails to The Good Information Foundation.
Oct. 6
When the agent called The Good Information Foundation to tell them they had not interviewed Williams. While talking to an employee, the agent was told that Williams’s email was likely in response to a TikTok video made by a social media influencer that claimed they were asked by The Good Information Foundation to produce anti-Trump content.
Documents say that the influencer “exposed” that The Good Information Foundation was “paying influencers to post videos and requiring them to use pre-established talking points.” The representative could not find any factual support for these talking points but said that the foundation hired an outside company that hired social media influencers to create videos that aligned with their information and beliefs, including beliefs about Trump. They received multiple emails after this TikTok was posted, but Williams’s was “the most egregious.”
Oct. 7
On Oct. 7, the FBI National Threat Operation Center received a complaint from someone identified as JK who said that they had seen a TikTok in which a man was “threatening to kill FBI agents.” He provided a link to the video. After a follow-up call the next day, JK provided a screenshot from the video that showed that it had been posted by “jikewilliamsofficial.”
The video, entitled “F— the FBI,” showed Williams talking to the camera, ostensibly about the encounter he’d had on the previous Monday at his home.
In part, Williams is allegedly seen saying:
“FBI showed up at my house the other day, Monday. Female agent along with a sheriff not packing like that. …Didn’t have a warrant, asking me questions about e-mails that I sent…. The FBI, at this point in time, has no jurisdiction. If they come to your home, point your weapon at them, open fire on them, and take them out.
“They are enemy combatants. By the Constitution, they are enemy combatants. Wake up America. Listen, if the FBI – I told the FBI, ‘if you come back, come hot.’ And if they try to surround my house like that, you tell that fat son of a b—-, ‘Boy, you’re a big fucking target.’ I got a f—— .308.6 I’ll take that AK-47 from you when I’m done and use it to kill the rest of those m———– and make it look like you did it.
“I’m not playing with the f—— FBI. They’ve been put on f—— notice, if you step back foot on my f—— property, I ain’t gonna sit there and talk to you. I’m going to bust your f—— head open with f—— .308s man. I’m going to kill every single one of you, stack you up in your cars and drive you back to headquarters and finish the f—— job. F— the FBI.
They are working with foreign agents, they are a corrupt organization, they have no jurisdiction, they have thrown us into basically World War III. We are literally now, at the precipice of World War III with Russia because of their corruption, their failure to investigate corruption, and they are complicit with the death of Ukrainians, of the United States Americans who are going over there and getting killed. They are absolutely out of control.
Stand up to ’em, fight ’em, shoot ’em on sight.”
Oct. 13
On Oct. 13, two more TikToks were found on Williams’s alleged account, responding to a commenter and telling them he “punked” the FBI and “stood them down, kicked them out of the yard.” He went on to accuse them of treason, sedition and conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Another video showed him in a garage, responding to another comment that the agent did not see, regarding the original video poster’s video about someone’s shooting ability, which court documents stated indicated a knowledge of firearms on his part.
Oct. 24
Another video was posted on Williams’s TikTok where he accused the FBI of being corrupt. At this point, however, his “jikewilliamsofficial” TikTok account was suspended, so the video was not downloaded and transcribed.
Oct. 29
Williams allegedly posted another video to the “jikewilliams” TikTok account, entitled “On the back of you (sic) money the pyramid the saying underneath it says ‘new world order’ and the eye on top of the pyramid is for the Secret society.”
In the video, Williams, standing in his garage and showing various guns and ammunition to his cell phone camera while he talks, allegedly says:
“Listen to me. Stand f—— strong. Pull out your f—— weapons. Fight your federal agents. They left my home. Nobody died. Thank God. Thank God. But I stood ’em down. And listen y’all, it’s like this. These people wanna come over here and start f—— problems with people like me who was just telling the truth, like this lady. They say I’m crazy, right?
“I’m not f—— crazy, I’m ready for a f—— fight. And I’m not ready to f—— go to Ukraine and fight Russia. I’m ready to shoot f—— FBI agents, CIA agents, and any federal law enforcement agent working for Joe Biden or anybody like Klaus Schwab … Australian police, any of them. Execute those m———– on sight. If they wanna f—— de-populate, de-populate them.
“I love y’all on this TikTok s—, whatever, but they’re gonna censor the truth. They’re gonna shut you down. You sound like you’re in Europe. What the f— is the CEO of Pfizer still doing f—— breathing? If I was in a hundred, a thousand yards of that m———–, he’d be spitting his f—— teeth out of his mouth. Cause I would shoot him with a .308 in the f—— mouth. TikTok is promoting vaccinations, which is death. But they won’t they won’t let you they won’t let you put this m———– on here. Right?” He pulls out a gun and a semi-automatic magazine as he records. “They won’t let you pull this m———– out. They won’t let me show you that, but they’ll show you a f—— syringe that kills little kids in their sleep.
“They wanna take away our weapons. They wanna take away our ability to communicate. And they wanna do it and they wanna watch y’all b—- and complain and watch me b—- and complain so they know where we’re at when it’s time to purge us. So, you damn well better start gettin’ your f——- weapons ready, start calling your f—– government like I do… tell them m——– where they can stick it, and dare’em to f—— bring a fight. And kill every f—— one of ’em that you can. Cause we should’ve did that to the Nazis in 1938, and we didn’t. And a hundred million people died. Should’ve killed Hitler as soon as he took Munich. But you’re f—— cowards and you’re TikTok. F—— fight man. Fight!”
Nov. 8
An arrest warrant was issued for Williams due to the threatening nature of his videos and his alleged behavior when the agent and deputy attempted to interview him in October.
Nov. 18
Williams was taken into custody by the FBI in Stokesdale. The arrest warrant lists the following charges:
- Threatening to murder a Federal law enforcement officer with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere, or with intent to retaliate against the officer.
- Transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another.
He was booked into the Forsyth County Detention Center and given no bond.
Nov. 23
Agents and his fiancée testified when Williams appeared in federal court in Winston-Salem, wearing a blue jumpsuit.
While he was in court he looked at his fiancée several times, mouthing “I love you” to her. She said she had been living with Williams for nearly a year, telling the court “he’s the best man” she knows and “he’s a great father.”
In court, new details were revealed about an exchange between Williams and a FedEx driver. According to the prosecution, Williams flashed a gun at the driver and asked if he was with the FBI, claiming he had bunkers in his backyard so he could hide from law enforcement.
Prosecutors say they also have a bodycam video they say show Williams telling a deputy, “I’m glad it didn’t happen at my home because it would have ended differently. I know you’re just doing your job, keeping me from killing two FBI agents.”
Nov. 2
Williams was indicted by a grand jury on four counts, according to court documents.
- One count of threatening to injure or murder a federal agent with intent to impede the agent’s official duties
- Three counts related to posting interstate communication containing a threat, in regard to three separate TikTok videos.
WGHP’s Alliyah Sims contributed to this report.
