Taylor Bullard, Houston, Texas man accused of threatening Capitol One executives with violence over debt amid claim the financial entity ruined his life.
A Capital One customer is facing jail time for allegedly threatening to assassinate an executive who he blamed for having ‘ruined’ his life.
Taylor Bullard, of Houston, Texas in an email to Capital One’s collection agency, claimed he had already paid the $543 he owed and wailed at the bank for ‘pestering’ him over what he decreed was an erroneous debt, according to court documents.
‘Call me before I show up to one of their locations with a machete and gasoline,’ Bullard wrote according to an email included in an FBI affidavit.
Corporate America on high alert
‘You have ruined my ability to buy a home. I’m 34 with a 100k+ job and it’s time I target the people and companies that have ruined my ability to live the life I deserve.
‘I will be coming after your executive team personally. Please call me before I do things that are unforgivable and will make your executive team question their life choices. Thank you, Taylor Bullard.’
The affidavit explained that Bullard was replying to an email the bank’s collection agency sent him urged the ‘delinquent’ customer to create a payment plan to resolve his debt.
FBI agents tracked the IP address of the person who sent the threatening email back to Bullard’s home and also subpoenaed his email records from Google, according to the affidavit which was obtained by Court Watch and shared with The Independent.
After being arrested by the US Marshals Service on December 20, Bullard agreed to a number of pretrial conditions, court records showed. Bullard will submit to mental health treatments, agree not to possess firearms and prohibited substances and agree to have his personal electronic devices monitored by the government.
Court papers also indicated that Bullard will have a public defender assigned to him.
Investigators were able to find three other instances of Bullard allegedly previously threatening companies he felt had ‘wronged’ him, according to the affidavit.
In 2017, Bullard allegedly sent an email to an unnamed company threatening that he would release anthrax at one of their events or kill himself in public. The affidavit said he used the same email addressed he used to threaten Capital One in December.
At the time, the FBI interviewed Bullard, who told agents ‘he wanted attention, wanted to see the companies sweat, and did not intend to hurt himself or others,’ according to the affidavit.
In 2022, Bullard left a voicemail with an unnamed bank’s customer service line, per the affidavit. In it, he allegedly said he would go to a branch armed with AK-47 and shoot up the drive through as well as damage an ATM.
The same year, Bullard is also alleged to have threatened Carvana with posts on X that were cited in the affidavit and are still viewable on the social media site.
In the posts the FBI claim Bullard made, he said Carvana sold him a defective vehicle, though the company’s name is redacted in the affidavit. The post include hashtags for BLM (Black Lives Matter) and Me Too.
Posted Bullard in a July 14, 2022 tweet: ‘@carvana you some me a car with a kk 4 tires filled with slime and an AC system filled with stop leak. I’m going to drive the lemon you sold me through your front doors in Friday off i10 in Houston. Be ready for chaos a**holes.’
Bullard was charged with one count of sending threatening interstate communications and if convicted, he could spend up to five years in prison.
He was released on a $25,000 bond and will be tried in Virginia, where Capital One is headquartered.
Moral dilemma of threatening violence against broken system
The episode follows widespread disconcert over what many question as ‘unethical practices’ at the hands of corporations, following the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4 outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The shooter in that episode is alleged to have been a 26 year old Ivy League graduate heralding from a wealthy Maryland family, Luigi Mangione.
Appearing in a NYC court on Monday, Mangione pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
The man’s criminal case has led to the Ivy League graduate receiving public adoration, with many claiming that the healthcare industry frequently deny medical claims from their customers. And that the practise is in fact built into their business model, with UnitedHealthcare being one of the chief violators of such actions, with the insurer denying no less than a third of policy claims in a typical year. Profits for 2025 are estimated at $450billon for the insurer. The company reported $281 billion in revenue last year.
Authorities haven’t indicated that they believe Bullard is a copycat of Thompson’s alleged killer.
The case follows that of 42-year-old Briana Boston of Florida who was accused of threatening BlueCross BlueShield over a rejected claim just days after Thompson was murdered.
Towards the end of the call, she allegedly told the operator: ‘Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.’
Those same words were found on the bullet casings at the scene of Thompson’s murder.
Upon a swath of police officers arriving at her Lakeland, Florida residence, the woman insisted she did not own any weapons and that she had only been joking amid exasperation of having had her claim denied.
