Kentucky dad faked his personal demise to keep away from paying greater than $100K in little one help, faces prolonged jail time

A Kentucky father has admitted to faking his demise to keep away from paying his ex-wife greater than $100,000 in excellent little one help and is going through critical jail time for the frilly ruse.

Jesse Kipf, 38, pleaded responsible to at least one rely of aggravated identification theft and one rely of pc fraud in federal court docket on March 29, in response to the plea settlement obtained by Legislation & Crime.

Kipf was incident by the US Legal professional’s Workplace in November after investigators with the FBI in Louisville, Kentucky, the Division of the Legal professional Normal for Hawaii, and the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Workplace caught wind of his cyber crimes, in response to a press launch.

Kipf admitted to finishing a Hawaii Demise Certificates Worksheet in Jan. 2023, the place he created a faux demise certificates for himself and “assigned himself because the medical certifier for the case and authorized that case.”

Prosecutors argued that his motivation to commit the cyber crimes was fueled by his want to keep away from paying “his excellent little one help obligations to his ex-wife,” the plea settlement states.

The very-much-alive father then “infiltrated different states’ demise registry methods” utilizing stolen credentials, in response to the plea settlement.

“He utilized a digital signature for [the physician], offering his title, title, and license quantity. This resulted within the Defendant being registered as deceased in lots of authorities databases.”

Nevertheless, his unlawful on-line endeavors didn’t finish with faking his demise.

Kipf additionally used the credentials he stole to realize entry to non-public enterprise, authorities, and company networks with the purpose of making an attempt to promote the delicate info he fraudulently obtained to different crooks on-line.

“In doing so, the Defendant brought on injury to a number of pc networks and stole the identities of quite a few people,” in response to the plea settlement.

In January, Kipf was charged with pc fraud stemming from the info breaches of GuestTek Interactive Leisure in February 2023 and Milestone Inc. in June 2023.

Authorities estimated the damages brought on by Kipf for skipping out on his little one help funds and having access to the networks exceeded greater than $195,000, court docket paperwork present.

The pc-hacking father agreed to pay restitution of $3,500 to the state of Hawaii, $56,247 to Milestone Inc., $19,653 to GuestTek Interactive Leisure, and $116,357 to the California little one help company, in response to the plea deal.

He additionally agreed to forfeit his digital gadgets and $16,218 in gold and silver cash.

Kipf was initially charged with 5 counts of pc fraud and three counts of aggravated identification theft, which carried a most of 30 years behind bars earlier than lots of these expenses had been dropped after he took the plea deal.

His sentencing listening to is scheduled for April 12 in federal court docket in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Kipf now faces a most of 5 years in federal jail for aggravated identification theft and a minimal of two years for pc fraud — each of which carry a steep nice of $250,000, in response to the plea deal.