A Wisconsin man made a forged emergency call in an elaborate program involving hacker doorbell cameras, designed to draw a SWAT team's answer Sentenced to 44 months in federal Prison Thursday.
Kya Christian Nelson, 23, of Racine, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty in January, one conspiracy count and two counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer for information. this event He organized in 2020 in California, Michigan, Montana, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Alabama.
Nelson has been in federal custody since August 2024, after being sentenced to jail in Kentucky for an unrelated case.
Nelson and his accomplice were hacked into more than a dozen environmental security camera accounts and signed a fake emergency call to the police. They then responded by armed officials on social media. Officials said in a press release Thursday that they also mocked the responding police and victims through ring equipment.
Officials confirmed Thursday that the victims were against Nelson and his accomplices.
Nelson and others were able to access the ring account by illegally obtaining the username and password of the Yahoo email account and identifying the individuals who use the same credentials for their RING Home Security Systems. Two of the victims were in Southern California.
A West Covina house was targeted in November 2020 when Nelson and his accomplices called on the city police department to claim they were the kids in the family. They told police that the child’s parents were drinking and firing fire at home, where multiple guns were present. Police cleared residents from their homes with guns.
Three days later, Nelson called local police and claimed again that he was a child, saying his father had a pistol in the house. Nelson then announced a second false call to police to report hearings of shooting at the victim's residence.
Prosecutors said Nelson used the ring camera to threaten and mocked the police once the police responded.
Prosecutors described in a sentencing memorandum that Nelson and those he worked with “terrorize innocent people from behind the keyboard.”
One of Nelson's accomplices indicted, James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 22, Kane Tower, Arizona Sentenced to seven years In June 2024, in federal prison. His sentencing included his role in the case and additional charges in Arizona.
In a 2022 statement to The New York Times, when Nelson and McCarty were sued, Lin said it “takes the security of our customers very seriously” and took steps to strengthen protection, including requiring customers to verify their identity when they log in and scan the network for a stealing ring.
