This week I’ve chosen to write about a young man who could be any parent’s son. He was no longer a high school student; he doesn’t know what to do with himself, except play video games. Maybe he’s bored, as many youths say so frequently these days. He’s adept at using his computer. So he decides to use those computer skills and all that free time to become a computer “hacker”, and because “you can’t catch a hacker”—his words, not mine.

Adult consequences for cyber-crimes are not exclusively for adults; youths under the age of 18 are also tried and sentenced as adults for multi-jurisdictional cyber-crimes. It’s time to have a serious chat with your children. Children need to understand that they cannot hide when it comes to cyber-crimes; their future is at stake if they think they can.

This 19-year-old’s crime spree ran the course of approximately eight months. It was reported that the 19-year-old found some of his targets through online gaming. He used anonymous emails and Twitter names in addition to Internet-based phone accounts in an attempt to commit his crimes so as not to be caught.

He first called the police department in a small town 1,000 miles and four states away from his hometown. He made an anonymous “SWAT” call. He said he’d taken hostages in a home and had already wounded one. If he didn’t receive a duffel bag with a million dollars he was going to kill both hostages and burn their house down. Police were dispatched and found the crime to be a hoax.

Swatting: Calls with the intent that they would result in an emergency police response to a residence, ideally involving a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

A few months later he called in a bomb threat at the high school in the same small town. He used the initials of a local 17-year-old boy who attended the high school. He said the bomb was set to detonate in one hour. Of course, the school was evacuated. The police determined the threat to be a hoax.

After the bomb threat hoax, the budding computer hacker sent a direct message via Twitter to the 17-year-old in the small town and said “NICE BOMB THREAT”. Later he sent a direct message to the 17-year-old and another claiming responsibility for the bomb threat.

The next day he called the same small town police department with another hostage “SWAT” call found to be a hoax. He sent the local 17-year another direct Twitter message advising him he’d been “Swatted”.

The day after the swatting hoax, he made another call to the small town police department again using the local teen’s initials and said he was going to shoot up the high school in thirty minutes and kill everyone. He posted on Twitter the local boy’s initials and that he was going to shoot up the school.

A few weeks later he claimed he had placed a bomb at the small town high school and all survivors would be killed by a strike team on their way to the school.

Then another Swat call to the same small town police department trying to sound like a child stating there was a home invasion and his mother had been shot.

Next, he left a voicemail message for one of the small town police officers stating he was the “Bomb Threat God” and that the officer better stop spreading rumors he was about to be caught because he was a hacker and you can’t catch a hacker. He said some extremely inappropriate comments to the officer and ended his message with him wanting to kill the officer’s family.

This pattern of behavior continued for a few more months, and then the local police turned the case over to the FBI. One day you think you’re an anonymous “hacker” living in the suburbs, possibly still living with your parents, and the next day you’re arrested by the FBI and transported to another state to face federal charges.

The defendant engaged in a pattern of harassing activity against several victims using the cloak of anonymity afforded by the Internet,” said Assistant United States Attorney Timothy C. Rank.

The 19-year-old pleaded guilty to calling in multiple false bomb threats, making harassing text messages, and making “swatting” phone calls, in which he falsely reported hostage situations. He was sentenced to 41-months in federal prison, followed by 3-years of ¹supervised release.

You can read the full FBI press release here: BOMB THREAT GOD

The invincible computer hacker along with more than 1,800 other criminals now resides in a low-security federal correctional institution. His release date is scheduled for May 2018.

United States Attorney Timothy C. Rank went on to say, “He wrought emotional havoc and caused the needless expenditure of public funds to respond to his destructive e-mails, tweets, and phone calls.”

What are your thoughts on this case? If you know of a crime that has taken place at a school that you feel others should be made aware of – email me and we can discuss the details.

¹United States Sentencing Commission – Federal Offenders Sentenced to Supervised Release: In 1984, as part of the Sentencing Reform Act (“SRA”) that created the federal sentencing guidelines system, Congress prospectively eliminated parole and established supervised release. Supervised release is a “unique” type of post-confinement monitoring that is overseen by federal district courts with the assistance of federal probation officers, rather than by the United States Parole Commission. A sentencing court is authorized (and, in some cases, required) to impose a term of supervised release in addition to a term of imprisonment. While on supervised release after reentry into the community following release from imprisonment, an offender is required to abide by certain conditions, some mandated by statute and others imposed at the court’s discretion. If an offender violates a condition, a court is authorized (and, in some cases, required) to “revoke a term of supervised release, and require the defendant to serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release without credit for time previously served on post[-]release supervision….

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