Swatting as a service: Meet the kid who terrorized America with 375 violent hoaxes

He now faces four years in federal prison.

See full article...

 

[rochefort]

What he did was deplorable, no doubt. One of the biggest problems I have with our justice system is that it doesn't take male's brain development into account. The prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until the early 20's in males, and is responsible for the higher abilities, such as reasoning, logic, judgement, and decision- making.

Obviously, there should repercussions for heinous crimes, but is four years in federal prison appropriate? How about ensuring he has no access to the internet whatsoever (however that works) and make him an indentured servant to some of the victims.

I have seen my own son develop into a responsible young man just between the years of 22 and 24. It's miraculous.

Four years in maximum security would be too much. Four years in the prison Shkreli was in is too little.

 

[taxythingy]

Just putting things in perspective: someone selling a small amount of crack cocaine is subject to a minimum of 5 years in prison in many states in the US.

But someone who unleashes complete chaos, terrifying thousands and costing municipalities millions of dollars in resources get 4 years in prison.

Swatting laws need to be much more punitive to deter such actions.

Or maybe, just maybe, all of the sentencing guidelines need to be looked at and normalised, somehow. While we're there, maybe police resources could be allocated differently to better target crime on an effect-on-society basis.

 

[David Mayer]

I say that because people have been killed in the past because of overzealous LEO and the swatters know it.

Which bolsters my point that:

you have a problem with your police force

 

[rochefort]

As a counterpoint, I went to school with kids to DID set off bombs in the bathrooms. Small ones flushed down the toilet that exploded in the sewer pipes below, shutting down the entire school for a week. Multiple times, until they finally got caught.

But I suspect that threat of 4 years in jail wouldn't have changed anything for them, and "boys will be boys" isn't an appropriate response either. They later went on to doing things like stealing ATMs. Their parents were quite wealthy.

Clearly they were suffering from affluenza!

More seriously, the reality of 4 years in jail would have been four years of those guys not committing crimes on the rest of us.

 

[slowtech]

Only 4 years feels too little for this level of organized crime.

I suspect that the reason they didn't arrest him right away, and the reason the sentence is relatively light, is that they waited for his 18th birthday, and charged him with the crimes committed after that date.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

Why do incels always look like incels? I always felt the same way about pedos.

I expect you would not look your best in a mug shot, either.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

I imagine that there may be civil suits against him, if there were so many incidents.

First rule of litigation is don't sue someone with no money.

There will not be any civil suits. He's 18, he's going to spend four years in jail, and even if you could recover the small amount of money he earned from doing this, it's not even going to cover your legal bill to bring the claim.

 

[Ken Thomas]

Has there ever been a case where an actual shooter (or bomber) called to notify his targets beforehand? I realize these people aren't exactly rational, but that really would seem to defeat the entire point.

Maybe it's callous, but it seems like what we need here is some mechanism for realistic and data-based threat assessment, and a response that's proportional to the level of plausibility. There's got to be some happy medium between just blowing things off and "Even the most unlikely threats must be treated with a maximum response!"

 

[Maestro4k]

estimating he made under $30K, and will be imprisoned for—a mere 4 years. Sounds like he could take that as a win.

did no one get hurt/die as a result of his swatting?

Doesn't sound like a win to me. Would you be willing to spend 4 years in prison for a whopping $7,500 of ill-gotten profit for each year you were in there? If he'd earned 10x that much, maybe, but even then being in prison in the US is really awful, so I doubt it.

Oh no, we're not doing this. Fuck this guy, and four years isn't enough. I was 18-22 once upon a time, and my prefrontal cortex might have failed me when it came to safe and attentive driving a few times, class work for some electives I didn't give a shit about, a girl or two I shouldn't have jumped into bed with, and a couple of ill-advised backcountry adventures that ended well mostly due to luck and getting real serious when it counted. It did not make me think that using the threat (and reality) of state violence to harass and persecute people was an acceptable moral choice, or give me the inspiration to charge money for my services doing same, or lead me to make threats that caused real people real fear and distress. Do not carry water for this bullshit.

I dare say the vast majority of guys made it through their 20s without committing any felonies. This guy racked up hundreds of them and went on and did more after the FBI searched his home and he knew they had the goods on him.

This is one of those where restitution should be exempt from bankruptcy.

Court ordered restitution already can't be discharged in bankruptcy (emphasis added):

1. Chapter 7 Bankruptcy: In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can discharge certain types of debts which provides relief from repayment obligations. However, restitution debts resulting from criminal acts or intentional wrongdoing are generally non-dischargeable and cannot be eliminated through Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
2. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy: Chapter 13 bankruptcy allows individuals to create a repayment plan to address outstanding debts, including restitution orders. While restitution debts must be repaid in full through the Chapter 13 plan, the structured repayment process may provide relief from creditor collection actions and help individuals manage their financial obligations over time.

The same applies to many settlements. My biological father tried to get out of the settlement he'd entered to pay back child support (he left mom when I was a baby, she finally found him when I was twelve), but the bankruptcy court wouldn't allow it. Even worse for him, the judge had suspected he'd try something like that and insisted on adding a clause to the settlement. That clause said that if my biological father stopped paying or tried to get out of the settlement, the amount owed was reset and punitive interest was added to it. Thanks to that, he didn't finish paying it off until I was in my mid twenties.

 

[YetAnotherAnonymousAppellation]

This is the kind of thing "life without possibility of parole" is made for. This kid is obviously a psycho-/sociopath and there is no fixing this kind of mental aberration.

 

[werehawk]

I'm pretty sure that it would be a safe bet that he will be back at doing this again once he gets out of prison. Also I suspect he will not serve a full sentence and will be out on parole in less than four years.

 

[GitM]

I'm pretty sure that it would be a safe bet that he will be back at doing this again once he gets out of prison. Also I suspect he will not serve a full sentence and will be out on parole in less than four years.

Federal Charges have a maximum 15% time reduction for good behavior, roughly 1 day for every week. The only way he gets out faster than that is if his sentence is commuted by the Orange Blight. This guy's not rich enough to have earned the Orange Blight's mercy.

 

[Derecho Imminent]

That's it? How is this justice?

Thats how plea deals work. They are always "less than he should have gotten". If they were too harsh no one would ever agree to it, and if there were no plea deals you would need 100s of times as many courts.

 

[johnlsenchak]

"It was hard keeping a straight face... When I swatted myself the cops'

You know his going to use the autism defense

 

[dEvErGEN]

I do not understand why police take non-credible threats and react this way. Nobody should believe any of these threats. This shouldn’t be possible

 

[Derecho Imminent]

Which bolsters my point that:

you have a problem with your police force

At least in all of these 375 cases no one got shot by police.

 

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

members of Congress, cabinet-level members of the executive branch, heads of multiple federal law enforcement agencies, at least one US senator, and "a former President of the United States."

And this, right here, is the only reason he was even arrested let alone facing prison. Had he limited himself to harming "little people" he'd have been left alone, because threats to "little people" often make great headlines to support more funding to law enforcement.

 

[rharris]

Hope he was forced to give up any money he made off of this, and or a fine to account for the amount of money emergency services had to waste on these swatting calls.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

The same applies to many settlements. My biological father tried to get out of the settlement he'd entered to pay back child support (he left mom when I was a baby, she finally found him when I was twelve), but the bankruptcy court wouldn't allow it. Even worse for him, the judge had suspected he'd try something like that and insisted on adding a clause to the settlement. That clause said that if my biological father stopped paying or tried to get out of the settlement, the amount owed was reset and punitive interest was added to it. Thanks to that, he didn't finish paying it off until I was in my mid twenties.

Child support is one of those things that always survives bankruptcy. Depending on the jurisdiction other types of settlements or judgment debts may or may not be wiped away via bankruptcy - it's pretty context-sensitive.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

And this, right here, is the only reason he was even arrested let alone facing prison. Had he limited himself to harming "little people" he'd have been left alone, because threats to "little people" often make great headlines to support more funding to law enforcement.

This is just cynical bullshit. I'll never understand why some people choose to live in a fantasy world that's worse than reality.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

I do not understand why police take non-credible threats and react this way. Nobody should believe any of these threats. This shouldn’t be possible

Because if they don't take every threat like this seriously, credible threats will go un-investigated and then people will be asking why the police don't' take bomb and school shooting threats seriously.

 

[Snark218]

So, what, overweight white kids with long hair are predisposed to become serial swatters? This is the worst kind of stereotyping, and frankly I don't see how it even makes sense here. I just don't see how you arrive at this conclusion without having some serious biases you really need to learn to get over.

Some of the nicest people I've known look a whole lot like this guy, and it's kind of horrible to imagine someone might think they're capable of something like this just because of the way they look.

And to anyone considering downvoting this, ask yourself: What would you think if this were an article about serial shoplifting (let's say electronics, to make it relevant) and the image was a burly black guy?

It's rare that I'm disgusted by the Ars commentariat, but this case absolutely warrants it. You cannot claim to support initiatives like DEI and simultaneously upvote a comment that basically says overweight white dudes are antisocial a**holes. If you're going to stand on the principal that people should be judged by what they do, not who they are, that absolutely must apply to everyone, or it's no principal at all.

I mean, seriously. Can anyone even try to defend the messaging here?

Is your performance over? Because, in the most semantically literal sense, my post stated the opposite of what you said in your very first sentence, and then you just talked yourself into hysteria from there. Did I read the post and expect to see a pug-ugly incel gremlin with eyes like two piss-holes in a snowbank and an expression that has never shown joy? Sure did. And that would have applied whether he was fat or skinny, crew cut or whatever this little lord Fauntleroy bullshit he's got going is. But I guess I have to admit that I knew he was white.

 

[Snark218]

They should make him take out $200,000 in student loans at 7.5% interest and release him.

/s but I hope that's obvious

Jesus Christ, I think the guy's scum too, but easy there on the cruel and unusual, Genghis.

 

[mhalpern]

I read elsewhere that he got a reduced sentence for rating on his customers, that and being a minor.

that will do it

 

[bayouborne]

Only 4 years feels too little for this level of organized crime.

Especially considering the fact that police responses to these events are fraught with all kinds of risks. I'm amazed that no one was accidentally killed in one of those 375 callouts.

 

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

Has there ever been a case where an actual shooter (or bomber) called to notify his targets beforehand? I realize these people aren't exactly rational, but that really would seem to defeat the entire point.

Maybe it's callous, but it seems like what we need here is some mechanism for realistic and data-based threat assessment, and a response that's proportional to the level of plausibility. There's got to be some happy medium between just blowing things off and "Even the most unlikely threats must be treated with a maximum response!"

Militaries and guerilla groups do it to comply with Protocol I, Article 57(2)(c). That's the only example I can think of.

If there is a real threat then the police won't go in until after the shooting stops. It's only when they know there is no threat to themselves that they go in guns blazing. That's the "medium" the Heroes in Blue are happy with.

 

[Arember]

Is four years enough punishment for this?

On the one hand, I have a judge who has spent years studying law, and developing their skills in making judgements, then days or even weeks hearing evidence and argument in relation to the facts of the case, and they say it is.

On the other hand, a lot of people read a headline on the internet and are saying it isn't.

I wonder who's right? I'm not saying judges don't stuff up, sometimes egregiously, but you might want to be cautious in your criticism unless you know a lot more than you can learn from reading this article.

 

[Jackattak]

I expect you would not look your best in a mug shot, either.

#truth

 

[SubWoofer2]

It is time to play today's fun game Psychopath, Sociopath or just poorly raised.

You had to put "blame the parents" in there!

In my day, the kid who set off explosions never blamed his parents. It was all about him. Different times.

 

[Fernwaerme]

Does it mean anything specific when people say that he will go to a "federal prison"? Are those especially hard? Not a US citizen, and I don't think this came up in "The Wire".

 

[Starouscz]

So what is wrong that you can do this couple hundred times before get caught ? With the amount of spying over all the comunication networks this seems to me quite surprising.

What about all the metadata collection? That should solve the swatting problem no?

 

[Powderhorn]

Normally, I'm an advocate for lighter sentences because the "tough on crime" strategy doesn't actually deter people; lock them up long enough to teach them a lesson.

But this fucking kid, he kept doing this after the cops came and searched his house in connection with this crime.

I don't trust him to learn his lesson in 4 years, I don't trust him to just abandon this activity, this part of who he was in 4 years.

That's gotta be a 5 year lesson, at least.

His five-year mission? To explore strange new cells. To boldly seek out actual food.

 

[quantumbyte]

I read elsewhere that he got a reduced sentence for rating on his customers, that and being a minor.

Five stars, would swat again?

 

[Auie]

ran on various social media channels

Mhmm, no need to tell me anything else.

 

[Dadlyedly]

Let’s hope the civil courts start seeing cases filed against this little shit (and his parents). If prison didn’t deter him, ruinous financial settlements might.

I've probably been ninja'd, but I don't see any reason why these various states can't prosecute him, and why these other countries can't request extradition. Just because he's going to serve 48 months in the federal clink doesn't mean he's not going to spend more time in prison.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I do not understand why police take non-credible threats and react this way. Nobody should believe any of these threats. This shouldn’t be possible

Welcome to America, where there aren't any 'non-credible threats'. Police have to treat each one as real, because an identical actually-real situation will absolutely happen at some point.

 

[passivesmoking]

How many lives did this idiot endanger both directly (sending armed police to people's houses) and indirectly (causing emergency services to be attending a false report when tehy were more badly needed elsewhere)?

How much money did he waste on fake calls? How much mental distress and trauma did he cause?

And he gets 4 years? Assuming time served is deducted and he can get time off for good behaviour (They do do that in America, right?) then it could be considerably less? That's ridiculous.

 

[alexnode]

There’s zero chance he will not jump straight back in to criminal activity when he gets out in 4 years. Zero chance.

That's the case for more correctional facilities in the US and UK, but there are places that put a bit more effort to rehabilitation.