A Wisconsin man will spend more than three years in prison for hacking into Ring doorbell cameras and then baiting law enforcement to the homes of unsuspecting victims so he could live stream the potentially violent conflicts.
Kya Christian Nelson, 23, of Racine, Wisconsin, was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison for participating in a one-week spree of “swatting” incidents that happened in 2020 at homes across the country, including two in Southern California.
According to the United States Department of Justice, Nelson and his co-conspirators gained access to the doorbell cameras by using Yahoo email accounts they’d previously hacked into, and then used the same email and password combos to see if they had associated Ring accounts.
Once logged in, Nelson and his friends would call law enforcement agencies in that person’s region, reporting false emergencies to draw an armed police response to their home.
After setting the stage for a potential law enforcement response, the group would then broadcast audio and video of the hacked devices on social media, and even used the cameras to taunt the victims and officers on the scene.
In one instance on Nov. 8, 2020, Nelson and another person logged into the Ring account of a victim in West Covina. Posing as a young child, they then called the West Covina Police Department to report that there was a violent confrontation taking place inside the home involving their parents, adding that there were several guns on the property and at least seven shots already fired inside.
Armed police responded to the home based on the hoax call, and the homeowners were removed from the residence at gunpoint. During that police operation, Nelson used the camera to taunt and threaten responding officers, the DOJ said.
Days later, another swatting incident took place at a home in Oxnard, with Nelson and a friend calling the Oxnard Police Department to again pose as a child and claim that their father was inside the home with a firearm. A second hoax call was made to police dispatch to report the sound of gunshots fired inside the home.
Again, officers responded and entered the victim’s home at gunpoint, and, again, Nelson used the home’s Ring camera to taunt and threaten police.
Nelson has been in federal custody since August 2024 and was previously serving a prison sentence in Kentucky on an unrelated charge. He pleaded guilty in the swatting case back in January.
One of his co-conspirators, 22-year-old James Andre McCarty, of Kayenta, Arizona, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for his role in the Ring crime spree.
McCarty also admitted to another incident in Florida, in which he called a local police department claiming to be a man who had just killed his wife and was holding a hostage, warning that he was armed and had rigged the house with explosives.
He live-streamed that police response on social media, and later took credit for it “stating that he thought it was amusing,” the DOJ said.
In sentencing documents, prosecutors described Nelson and his co-conspirators as criminals who “went on a digital crime spree, terrorizing innocent people around the country” while they were safe behind their keyboards.
“He subjected others to real danger,” prosecutors wrote.
The case was investigated by the FBI.
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