LOS ANGELES — A 23-year-old man from Racine will spend more than three years in federal prison for his involvement in a nationwide “swatting” spree that occurred over one week from November 7-13, 2020.
Kya Christian Nelson, of Racine, and his co-conspirator, James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 22, of Arizona, hacked into Ring doorbell cameras after obtaining logins from unsuspecting victims' Yahoo email accounts and matching those details with Ring account holders, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Nelson then baited law enforcement into responding to the homes of victims so he could livestream the confrontations from the Ring devices on social media, even taunting responding officers through the cameras.
Hoax calls
The swatting calls included a hoax call to police in West Covina, California, on November 8, 2020, in which the caller claimed to be a minor child reporting that his parents were shooting guns inside the home, prompting police to respond to the residence with their guns drawn.
Another incident mirrored the West Covina swatting call, in which Nelson made hoax calls to the Oxnard Police Department on November 11, 2020, claiming to be a child whose father had a handgun and later reporting shots fired.
In both incidents, Nelson taunted responding officers through the Ring camera, according to the release.
Nelson was sentenced on Thursday, May 1, to 44 months in federal prison for participating in the one-week nationwide “swatting spree.” He had pleaded guilty on January 23 to one count of conspiracy and two counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
Watch: Racine man sentenced to over 3 years in prison for ‘swatting’ spree
“[Nelson] and his co-conspirators went on a digital crime spree, terrorizing innocent people around the country from behind their keyboards,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “While [Nelson] was safe behind his keyboard, he subjected others to real danger.”
McCarty was sentenced in June 2024 to seven years in federal prison for his role in the swatting calls and for additional charges in the District of Arizona.
He admitted to accessing a victim’s Ring camera in Florida and making a call to the North Port Florida Police Department, claiming to be the victim's husband, who had just killed her, was holding a hostage, and had explosives at the residence.
He then livestreamed the law enforcement response and posted a message on social media taking credit for the swatting incident, stating that he thought it was amusing, according to the release.
Nelson has been in federal custody since August 2024 and previously served a prison sentence in Kentucky after being convicted in state court there in an unrelated case.
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