(GoRealNewsNow.com) – Avoiding his responsibilities to provide for his children as a father should, a Kentucky dad confessed to faking his own death to evade paying over $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife.
According to the plea agreement from Law & Crime, 38-year-old Jesse Kipf admitted guilt to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of computer fraud in federal court on late March 29.
As per a press release, the United States Attorney’s Office scrutinized Kipf in November after FBI investigators in Louisville, Kentucky, alongside the Department of the Attorney General for Hawaii and the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office uncovered his cyber-crimes.
Kipf acknowledged crafting a Hawaii Death Certificate Worksheet in January last year where he created a false death certificate for himself, even naming himself as the medical certifier and affirming the case.
Prosecutors contended that his motive for committing the cyber-crimes stopped from his desire to avoid his “outstanding child support obligations to his ex-wife,” as stated in the plea agreement.
Likewise, the still-breathing father then “infiltrated other states’ death registry systems” using pilfered credentials.
“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,” the plea agreement stated.
However, Kipf’s illicit online exploits did not end with faking his death.
He also used the stolen credentials to breach private business, government, and corporate networks, with the aim of selling the sensitive information he obtained fraudulently to other cybercriminals online.
“In doing so, the Defendant caused damage to multiple computer networks and stole the identities of numerous individuals,” according to the plea agreement.
Moreover, authorities estimated that damages caused by Kipf due to skipping his child support payments and infiltrating networks exceed $195,000.
As part of the plea deal, the computer-savvy dad agreed to pay restitution, including $3,500 to Hawaii, $56,247 to Milestone Inc., $19,653 to GuestTek Interactive Entertainment, and $116,357 to the California child support agency.
Initially facing several charges, which included five counts of computer fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft, which could have meant up to 30 years in prison, Kipf opted for the plea deal, which led to the dropping of many charges.
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