A deadbeat dad from Kentucky has confessed to orchestrating an elaborate scheme to get out of paying his back child support payments.
Deadbeat Dad hacks Hawaii to fake death
39-year-old hacker Jesse Kipf entered a guilty plea to charges of identity theft and computer fraud at a U.S. District Court in Kentucky at the end of March.
In November of 2023, a federal grand jury handed down an indictment against Kipf for multiple offenses, including computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Kipf admitted to breaking into Hawaii’s death registry to falsify his own death certificate in January 2023, by using the personal information of a doctor whose identity he stole.
“He applied a digital signature for [the physician], providing his name, title, and license number. This resulted in the Defendant being registered as deceased in many government databases,” court documents state.
In addition to stealing the physician’s medical credentials, the Kentucky hacker racked up $116,000 in financial damages by impersonating the man.
After creating his own death certificate, Kipf listed himself as deceased across a variety of governmental databases by confirming his own fake death.
According to court documents, Kipf faked his own demise and stole other people’s identities “in order to avoid his outstanding child support obligations to his ex-wife.”
Beyond ripping off his former spouse, the cyber criminal “infiltrated private business networks” by stealing credentials from “real people,” and selling the illicit access and ill-gotten personal information on a dark web “Russian forum.”
“In doing so, the Defendant caused damage to multiple computer networks and stole the identities of numerous individuals,” the plea agreement states.
During his crime spree, Kipf breached the state websites of Arizona, Hawaii, Vermont, and broke into the databases of two hospitality technology companies that are vendors for large hotel chains like the Marriott.
According to Forbes, “investigators have no evidence that hotel customer’s personal identifying information was compromised,” which was confirmed by a Marriott spokesperson, who told the outlet that “there was no impact to customer data.”
Deadbead dad faces up to seven years in prison
Kipf was indicted in in 2023 for making false statements to open credit lines and using a fake social security number. His original charges, including aggravated identity and computer fraud, carried a prison sentence of over 30 years.
Under the plea agreement, the very alive deadbeat dad is required to pay all his victims restitution in the amount of over $195,000.
The total payment breakdown includes $3,500 to the state of Hawaii, $56,247 to Milestone Inc., $19,653 to GuestTek Interactive Entertainment, and $116,357 to the California child support agency
Instead of rolling the dice with a three decade prison sentence, Kipf pleaded down to a maximum of seven years behind bars and $500,000.
Kipf will find out his fate during a sentencing hearing scheduled for April 12.
