CALIFORNIA (WHNT) — Two young men have been charged with carrying out a “swatting spree” over the span of one week in November, when they allegedly gained access to a dozen Ring doorbell cameras across the nation, including those in Chesapeake, and streamed the police response live.
Indictments were handed down by a federal grand jury last week against Kya Christian Nelson, 21, of Racine, Wisconsin, and James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 20, of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The federal indictment returned last week said from November 7, 2020, to November 13, 2020, the pair allegedly “gained access” to several home security door cameras sold by Following their alleged acquisition of login credentials for Yahoo email accounts belonging to victims across the country, Ring LLC.
The indictment goes on to accuse Nelson and McCarty of making fictitious 911 calls to the addresses of the victims in an effort to get their homes treated as emergency situations. The act has been termed “swatting.”
Nelson, also known as “ChumLul,” and McCarty, a.k.a. “Aspertaine,” are also accused of accessing the Authorities responded to the fake calls using ring devices and live-streamed the audio and video on social media while allegedly taunting officers and locals through the cameras.
One incident in West Covina, California. alleges Nelson and an “accomplice” called police there, posing as a minor reporting her parents drinking and shooting guns inside the house. Nelson is charged with taunting the officers as they arrived at the house using the Ring camera.
According to the indictment, in a different incident in Florida, McCarty, Nelson, and an uncharged co-conspirator (a juvenile) called the police and pretended to have just killed their wife. He was also accused of claiming that he had rigged the house with explosives and held a hostage inside.
There have allegedly been other incidents of this nature in Flat Rock, Michigan, Redding, California, Billings, Montana, Decatur, Georgia, Chesapeake, Virginia, Rosenberg, Texas, Oxnard, California, Darien, Illinois, North Port, Florida, and Katy, Texas.
The FBI released a PSA after a string of swatting incidents urging owners of smart home devices with cameras and voice recognition to use stronger passwords to fend off similar attacks.
Nelson is presently imprisoned in Kentucky after he allegedly called police there in January 2021 to report an active shooter at a nearby school.
In March 2022, he entered a guilty plea and received a seven-year prison term.
Additionally, McCarty is charged with phoning police and schools to threaten attacks on at least 18 occasions.
Swatting incidents occurred earlier this month at several schools in North Alabama. Investigative work is still being done on those hoax calls.
Both are accused of conspiring to intentionally access computers without permission on one count. In addition, Nelson was accused of two counts of aggravated identity theft as well as two counts of willfully entering a computer without permission.
Read More: How to Turn Off Ring Camera?
Source: wavy.com
