A Kentucky man, Jesse Kipf, 38, confessed to orchestrating a scheme where he faked his death to evade over $100,000 in unpaid child support to his ex-wife. He now faces significant jail time after pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft and computer fraud in federal court on March 29, as per the plea agreement obtained by Law & Crime.
Kipf came under scrutiny from the United States Attorney’s Office in November following investigations by the FBI in Louisville, Kentucky, the Department of the Attorney General for Hawaii, and the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, who uncovered his cyber crimes, as stated in a press release.
Kipf admitted to completing a Hawaii Death Certificate Worksheet in Jan. 2023, where he created a fake death certificate for himself and “assigned himself as the medical certifier for the case and certified that case.”
Prosecutors argued that his motivation to commit the cyber crimes was fueled by his desire to avoid paying “his outstanding child support obligations to his ex-wife,” the plea agreement states.
Kipf also used the credentials he stole to gain access to private business, government, and corporate networks with the goal of trying to sell the sensitive information he fraudulently obtained to other crooks online.
“In doing so, the Defendant caused damage to multiple computer networks and stole the identities of numerous individuals,” according to the plea agreement.
In January, Kipf was charged with computer fraud stemming from the data breaches of GuestTek Interactive Entertainment in February 2023 and Milestone Inc. in June 2023.
Authorities estimated the damages caused by Kipf for skipping out on his child support payments and gaining access to the networks exceeded more than $195,000, court documents show.
The computer-hacking father agreed to pay restitution of $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, according to the plea deal.
He also agreed to forfeit his electronic devices and $16,218 in gold and silver coins.
Kipf was initially charged with five counts of computer fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft, which carried a maximum of 30 years behind bars before many of those charges were dropped after he took the plea.
