The U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Kentucky reported that a Somerset man was sentenced to 81 months in prison after he reportedly hacked into a system and faked his own death to avoid paying child support.
The office detailed that 39-year-old Jesse Kipf was sentenced on Monday for computer fraud and aggravated identity theft. The plea agreement said that Kipf “intentionally accessed a computer without authorization and then obtained information from a protected computer for his own private gain and in furtherance of identity theft.”
In January 2023, Kipf reportedly gained access to the Hawaii Death Registry System by using the login information of a physician and then proceeded to create a “case” for his own death, the office reported. Kipf went on to assign himself as the medical certifier and certified his death by using the digital signature of the doctor, resulting in his registration as a dead person in several government databases.
The office added that Kipf admitted to faking his own death to “avoid his outstanding child support obligations.”