LOS ANGELES — A former Arizona resident has been detained on suspicion of conspiring with another suspect to hack Ring doorbell cameras and call in fake emergencies to law enforcement agencies.
Charges were filed in Arizona last week against 20-year-old James Thomas Andrew McCarty after investigators identified him as one of the suspects who allegedly went on a "swatting" spree in November 2020.
McCarty, who lived in Navajo County when the offenses allegedly occurred, is accused of conspiring with Kya Christian Nelson to hack into a dozen Ring accounts throughout the country, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Central California.
After gaining access to the Ring accounts, the suspects would place bogus emergency calls in order to get a large police presence to visit the home of the account holder.
The defendants then allegedly live-streamed police visiting the victim's residence and posted the footage online.
Prosecutors say McCarty and Nelson carried out the scheme by acquiring the username and password information for Yahoo email accounts. They would then determine whether those Yahoo accounts also had Ring accounts.
The "swatting" events occurred in California, Montana, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Alabama, and Florida.
Defendants would allegedly verbally taunt responding police officers and victims through the Ring devices during several of the incidents, prosecutors say.
The series of "swatting" incidents that occurred in late 2020 resulted in the FBI putting out a public advisory to encourage Ring users to use complex passwords for their accounts.
Both defendants have been charged with one count of conspiracy to intentionally access computers without authorization. Nelson has also been charged with two counts of intentionally accessing without authorization a computer and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
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