DALLAS, Texas — A federal grand jury in Dallas charged Nikolay Sapov — filings also use Nikolay Georgiyevitch Sapov — with a pair of felony stalking counts after he allegedly chased a former coworker from Canada into North Texas, U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould for the Northern District of Texas said Wednesday.
Count one covers crossing state lines to stalk. Count two covers electronic harassment. A conviction on either count can bring as much as five years behind bars, then supervised release and possible fines.
FBI agents out of the Dallas Field Office Violent Crimes Task Force built the case. Dallas Police Department officers and Tyler Police Department officers helped, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection made the border arrest. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas is handling the prosecution. An indictment is only an allegation, and Sapov is presumed innocent unless a jury finds him guilty.
Court papers say the two first crossed paths as seasonal staff at the Miami Open. Over time, prosecutors allege, Sapov kept messaging off the clock, hunted personal and family social accounts, and mailed unwanted gifts. Filings also describe trips to Orlando and Plantation in 2023 and 2025.
Last summer he flew from Toronto, rented a car at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and appeared near the victim’s gated complex. On June 22, 2026, property security and local officers found him loitering and issued a trespass warning. On June 24, a doorbell camera caught someone matching his build at the door in a full rubber mask. The victim and a partner briefly shifted to a hotel and bought extra security.
Messages kept coming into August, including an artificial-intelligence image that put the victim next to him. Border officers with Customs and Border Protection pulled Sapov off a passenger train entering the United States on Aug. 22 under a Texas stalking warrant. Phones and gear recovered later held neighborhood maps, locksmith screenshots and explicit AI images of the adult victim, Raybould’s office said.
R. Joseph Rothrock, the special agent in charge at FBI Dallas, said agents will keep chasing people who scare others with threats. Raybould said predatory moves that cross borders will meet a hard federal answer.
Section: More Dallas TX crime news
Filed under: Dallas TX Crime News
