A Kentucky man admitted to faking his own death to avoid paying over $100,000 in remarkable child support to his ex-wife, in accordance to a plea settlement filed in federal courtroom past due ultimate month.
Jesse E. Kipf, 39, pleaded in charge to one rely of annoyed identification robbery and one rely of laptop fraud in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky on March 29. According to the plea settlement, Kipf accessed the Hawaii death registry gadget in January 2023 the use of the main points of a physician dwelling in some other state and created a case for own death. He then “assigned himself as the medical certifier for the case and certified that case,” which resulted in Kipf being indexed as deceased in many executive databases.
“The defendant also infiltrated other states’ death registry systems using credentials he stole from other real people,” the plea settlement states. “The defendant faked his own death, in part, in order to avoid his outstanding child support obligations to his ex-wife.”
In addition, Kipf admitted to hacking into personal industry, governmental and company networks with information he stole from others and tried to promote the get entry to to the networks to consumers on-line, the courtroom record states.
His legal professional, Thomas Miceli, didn’t right away reply to requests for remark.
Kipf’s crimes resulted in greater than $195,000 in estimated damages, together with greater than $79,000 in losses to governmental and company networks and greater than $116,000 in losses suffered by way of his ex-wife. He has agreed to pay restitution to all events he wronged, in accordance to the plea settlement.
Kipf used to be to begin with indicted by way of a federal grand jury in November 2023 on 5 counts of laptop fraud and 3 counts of annoyed identification robbery, in accordance to a news release. He used to be accused of illegally getting access to state web pages for Arizona, Hawaii and Vermont, in addition to companies GuestTek Interactive Entertainment Ltd. and Milestone Inc.
Kipf used to be additionally indicted on two counts of constructing false statements on packages in reference to federally insured monetary establishments for allegedly opening two credit accounts in 2020 and 2023 with a false Social Security quantity, in accordance to the indictment.
These preliminary fees carried a jail sentence of over 30 years.
After taking a plea deal, Kipf faces a most of 7 years in jail and up to $500,000 in fines, in step with courtroom data.
His sentencing listening to is scheduled for the afternoon of April 12.