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Man sentenced for deadly 'swatting' scheme over username
Original report: 'Swatting' death related to use of Twitter nickname '@Tennessee' leads to 5-year sentence (Memphis Commercial Appeal)
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Source: Associated Press
Man sentenced for deadly ‘swatting’ scheme over username
July 23, 2021
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man was sentenced to five years in prison this week for his role in an international “swatting” scheme that led to a person’s death, The Commercial Appeal reported.
Authorities said Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, worked with others, including a minor in Great Britain, to try to force people to hand over control of desirable social media usernames through harassment, including swatting. Swatting is an illegal practice of falsely reporting life-threatening emergencies at a person’s home, causing heavily armed police, and sometimes SWAT teams, to rush to the scene.
In this case, Sonderman, 20, provided contact information to a co-conspirator about Mark Herring, of Sumner County, who controlled the Twitter handle @Tennessee, according to court documents.
On April 27, 2020, that co-conspirator called Sumner County police to say “that he had shot a female in the back of a head and she was dead, and that he would use pipe bombs placed at the front and back doors if police responded,” according to a statement signed by federal prosecutors. The address the caller gave was Herring’s home.
“Emergency responders were dispatched, and when they arrived at Herring’s home, guns drawn, they called for Herring to walk toward them, keeping his hands visible. As he did so, Herring, 60, appeared to lose his balance and fell to the ground, unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital; cause of death was determined to be a heart attack,” court records state.
-snip-
July 23, 2021
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man was sentenced to five years in prison this week for his role in an international “swatting” scheme that led to a person’s death, The Commercial Appeal reported.
Authorities said Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, worked with others, including a minor in Great Britain, to try to force people to hand over control of desirable social media usernames through harassment, including swatting. Swatting is an illegal practice of falsely reporting life-threatening emergencies at a person’s home, causing heavily armed police, and sometimes SWAT teams, to rush to the scene.
In this case, Sonderman, 20, provided contact information to a co-conspirator about Mark Herring, of Sumner County, who controlled the Twitter handle @Tennessee, according to court documents.
On April 27, 2020, that co-conspirator called Sumner County police to say “that he had shot a female in the back of a head and she was dead, and that he would use pipe bombs placed at the front and back doors if police responded,” according to a statement signed by federal prosecutors. The address the caller gave was Herring’s home.
“Emergency responders were dispatched, and when they arrived at Herring’s home, guns drawn, they called for Herring to walk toward them, keeping his hands visible. As he did so, Herring, 60, appeared to lose his balance and fell to the ground, unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital; cause of death was determined to be a heart attack,” court records state.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/technology-26dcd769d9788bdb224f1ccde730936b
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Source: Memphis Commercial Appeal
'Swatting' death related to use of Twitter nickname '@Tennessee' leads to 5-year sentence
Daniel Connolly
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Published 7:32 p.m. CT Jul. 21, 2021 | Updated 11:55 a.m. CT Jul. 22, 2021
A Memphis federal judge sentenced a man to five years in prison Wednesday in an international "swatting" scheme over the use of the Twitter nickname @Tennessee. Federal prosecutors said the scheme led to a person's death.
"Swatting" is the illegal practice of falsely reporting life-threatening emergencies at people's homes, causing heavily armed police to rush to the scene.
This case involves Shane Sonderman, now 20, a resident of Lauderdale County northeast of Memphis. Federal authorities accused him of working with others, including a minor in Great Britain, to use "swatting" as a harassment tactic to force people to give up control of a valuable asset: cool-sounding social media screen names.
The conspirators wanted control of those screen names because simple, catchy social media screen names can be resold on the Internet, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors said the conspirators wanted the potentially valuable Twitter nickname, @Tennessee, which was controlled by Mark Herring of Sumner County, Tennessee, northeast of Nashville.
-snip-
Daniel Connolly
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Published 7:32 p.m. CT Jul. 21, 2021 | Updated 11:55 a.m. CT Jul. 22, 2021
A Memphis federal judge sentenced a man to five years in prison Wednesday in an international "swatting" scheme over the use of the Twitter nickname @Tennessee. Federal prosecutors said the scheme led to a person's death.
"Swatting" is the illegal practice of falsely reporting life-threatening emergencies at people's homes, causing heavily armed police to rush to the scene.
This case involves Shane Sonderman, now 20, a resident of Lauderdale County northeast of Memphis. Federal authorities accused him of working with others, including a minor in Great Britain, to use "swatting" as a harassment tactic to force people to give up control of a valuable asset: cool-sounding social media screen names.
The conspirators wanted control of those screen names because simple, catchy social media screen names can be resold on the Internet, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors said the conspirators wanted the potentially valuable Twitter nickname, @Tennessee, which was controlled by Mark Herring of Sumner County, Tennessee, northeast of Nashville.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/2021/07/21/swatting-death-over-tennessee-twitter-nickname-brings-60-months-prison/8048489002/
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