Hacker Gets 3 Years In Prison For Fake 911 Call

An Orange County man was sentenced to three years in a California prison when he tricked 911 dispatchers into sending a SWAT team to a randomly selected home in Orange County.

Randal T. Ellis, a 19 year-old, was sent sentenced to three years in prison by Orange County Superior Court when he pled guilty to false imprisonment by violence and falsely reporting a crime. He was ordered to pay $14,765 in restitution, most of it going to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Randal was arrested after he hacked into a telephone network impersonating a caller from a Lake Forest home, saying that the man had murdered someone and was going to shoot others. He used a technique, known by other hackers as SWATing.

The Sheriff's Department them sent out a SWAT team and surrounded the house with dozens of officers, with dogs and a helicopter.

As the children were sleeping in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Doug Bates, Doug Bates thinking he heard a prowler grabbed a knife. When he went out into the backyard, deputies confronted him with assault rifles, and handcuffed Bates and his wife until they determined that the call was a hoax.

It was six months before Ellis was arrested and charged.



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