LOS ANGELES
A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a one-week nationwide “swatting” spree that gained access to Ring home security door cameras, placed bogus emergency phone calls designed to elicit an armed police response, then livestreamed the events on social media, sometimes while taunting responding police officers in communities such as West Covina and Oxnard.
Kya Christian Nelson, 23, of Racine, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
Nelson, who is doing time in a Kentucky state prison after being convicted in an unrelated case, has been in federal custody since August 2024.
U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt scheduled a May 1 sentencing hearing. Nelson faces up to five years in federal prison for each count.
“The defendant’s malicious actions traumatized his victims and put their lives – and the lives of responding officers – at risk,” said Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office. “Swatting hoaxes drain crucial law enforcement resources at the expense of taxpayers and diverts police officers from responding to actual crisis situations. This case is a good reminder for security doorbell users that it’s important to practice strict cyber hygiene by using difficult passwords and by employing two-factor authentication.”
According to his plea agreement, from November 7 to 13, 2020, Nelson and his co-conspirators hacked Ring home security cameras by stealing Yahoo email credentials from victims across the U.S. They used the stolen credentials to access Ring accounts, control doorbell cameras, and gather more information about the victims
The conspirators made fake emergency calls to law enforcement near victims’ homes, triggering police responses.
They then hacked into victims’ Ring devices, livestreaming audio and video on social media during the police response. In some cases, they taunted officers and victims through the devices.
For example, on November 8, 2020, Nelson and a co-conspirator hacked a victim’s Yahoo and Ring accounts in West Covina, according to officials.
They placed a hoax call to police, claiming to be a child reporting gunfire and drinking at the residence. This false report led police to respond and remove residents from their home at gunpoint.
During the police response, Nelson accessed the Ring doorbell camera located at the West Covina residence and used it to verbally threaten and taunt the police officers who responded to the reported incident.
In another incident, on November 11, 2020, Nelson illegally possessed the Yahoo! and Ring login credentials of a victim living in Oxnard. Nelson then used those credentials to access the victim’s Ring account.
Nelson or a co-conspirator made a hoax call to the Oxnard Police Department purporting to be coming from inside the victim’s home.
The caller told the police that they were a child whose father was wielding a handgun inside the residence. Nelson made a second hoax call to Oxnard Police to report hearing shots fired at the victim’s residence.
Based on these hoax calls, Oxnard Police officers made an emergency response to the house and cleared the residents from the home at gunpoint.
Nelson accessed the Ring doorbell camera located at the Oxnard residence and used it to threaten and taunt the police officers who had responded to the reported incident.
In June 2024, James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 22, of Kayenta, Arizona, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for his role in the Ring swatting scheme and additional charges in Arizona.
McCarty, who pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy as Nelson, admitted to hacking a victim’s Ring camera in Florida. He called police, posing as the victim’s husband, falsely claiming he had killed her, taken a hostage, and rigged explosives at their home, officials stated.
McCarty livestreamed the police response and posted on social media, bragging about the incident and calling it amusing.
The FBI investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Khaldoun Shobaki of the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.