Man Charged With Making Threats

Federal agents and police arrested a Long Beach man Thursday on suspicion of making threats to the prosecutor and the alleged victim in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, authorities said.

Cedric Vaughn Augustine, 37, was charged Wednesday in a Denver federal grand jury indictment with 26 counts of attempted extortion, making interstate threats, making a threat using the U.S. mail and threats to use fire or explosives, said FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin.

“These are serious charges Mr. Augustine is facing and through this investigation and this prosecution we hope to dissuade others from similar behavior,” McLaughlin said.

FBI investigators said Augustine was being held without bail at the Long Beach Police Department jail and would be handed over to federal authorities today, said Long Beach Police Sgt. Paul LeBaron.

Bryant, 25, is accused of raping a 19-year-old woman at an Edwards, Colo., resort on June 30, 2003. Bryant, who is free on $25,000 bond, said they had consensual sex.

The threats began July 18, 2003, when Augustine allegedly called the office of Eagle County Dist. Atty. Mark Hurlbert and left a message on an answering machine.

“Anything happens to Kobe, something will happen to you,” said the message, according to federal authorities. “We will hunt you down” and shoot you, and “we are not playing.”

In a call the next day, according to authorities, Augustine allegedly threatened Bryant’s accuser in an obscene telephone message that said she would be shot.

On Sept. 18, Augustine allegedly sent a letter to the Hurlbert saying, “We are coming to kill her and her family.”

More threats were made over the next month, the indictment alleges.

Neither Hurlbert nor his spokeswoman could be reached for comment.

This is not the first arrest for alleged threats in the Bryant case.

In September, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Patrick Graber, a 31-year-old Swiss national from El Segundo, for allegedly offering to kill Kobe Bryant’s accuser for $3 million.

That investigation began on Sept. 8, when security employees of Bryant came across a letter from a man who offered to make Bryant’s legal troubles “go away” for $3 million.

Bryant, through his attorneys, told the Sheriff’s Department of the offer, according to Bryant’s lawyer. At the request of the sheriff’s investigators, Bryant’s security employees met with the man and tape-recorded the conversation as deputies listened.

Graber was arrested on Sept. 18. He remains in custody awaiting trial.