Caroline Neal
LOS ANGELES — A 23-year-old Racine man has been sentenced to 44 months in federal prison in connection to a nationwide spree in which hackers gained access to Ring door cameras, placed false calls to emergency services and live-streamed police response on social media.
In January, Kya Nelson, who has been in federal custody since August 2024, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
He previously served a prison sentence in Kentucky after being convicted in an unrelated state case.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Nelson and other conspirators were accused of acquiring login information for Yahoo email accounts throughout the United States.
Then, they allegedly determined whether account owners used the same login information for Ring doorbell camera devices, allowing them to learn more about the account owners.
From Nov. 7, 2020, to Nov. 13, 2020, false emergency reports or calls were made to local law enforcement to provoke a police response to an account owner’s home.
The police response was live-streamed through the cameras on social media and the accused “taunted responding police officers and victims through the Ring devices during several of the incidents,” according to the release.
“(Nelson) and his co-conspirators went on a digital crime spree, terrorizing innocent people around the country from behind their keyboards,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “While (Nelson) was safe behind his keyboard, he subjected others to real danger.”
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