Nationwide 'swatting' spree, Racine man sentenced to federal prison
Ring doorbell camera
LOS ANGELES - A Racine man has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for his role in a week-long, nationwide "swatting" spree that happened in 2020.
In Custody:
Federal prosecutors said 23-year-old Kya Nelson pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy and two counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
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Nelson has been in federal custody since August 2024 and was previously serving a prison sentence in Kentucky after he was convicted in state court there as part of an unrelated case.
The backstory:
According to federal prosecutors, Nelson and others gained access to Ring doorbell cameras through Yahoo! email accounts belonging to victims throughout the country.
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The conspirators determined whether the owner of each compromised Yahoo! account also had a Ring account using the same email address and password that could control the devices. Using that information, they identified and gathered additional information about the victims.
Then, prosecutors said the conspirators placed false emergency reports or telephone calls to local law enforcement in the areas where the victims lived. Those reports or calls were intended to elicit an emergency police response to the victim’s residence.
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The conspirators then accessed – without authorization – the victims’ Ring devices and transmitted the audio and video from those devices on social media during the police response. They also taunted responding police officers and victims through the Ring devices during several of the incidents.
In one instance in Oxnard, California, a caller told police that they were a child whose father was wielding a handgun inside the home. Nelson made a second hoax call to police to report hearing shots fired at the victim’s residence. Based on these hoax calls, police officers made an emergency response to the house and cleared the residents from the home at gunpoint. Nelson accessed the Ring doorbell camera and used it to threaten and taunt the police officers who had responded to the reported incident.
The Source: The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California released information for this report.