A Navajo County man was recently sentenced to prison for making hoax threats throughout multiple states in a practice known as swatting while he pretended to be real people.
According to a June 24 news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, James Thomas Andrew McCarty, 21, of Kayenta, Arizona, was sentenced to seven years in prison the previous week after pleading guilty on Feb. 1 to hoax call-related charges in two separate indictments from the U.S. attorneys' offices for the districts of Arizona and Central California.
The news release also noted that McCarty pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated identity theft in the District of Arizona.
In a conspiracy case dating back to Nov. 13, 2020, McCarty collaborated with others to access Ring home security accounts, as stated in the news release. McCarty allegedly breached a Florida victim's Ring account, called the police, falsely claiming to be the victim's husband who he claimed had committed murder, held a hostage, and rigged explosives at the home, the news release said.
McCarty livestreamed the law enforcement response, posting a message saying he found it funny, the news release added. He also victimized others by making multiple calls to California, the news release mentioned.
McCarty, on Jan. 25, 2021, made hoax calls to high schools in Indiana and Oklahoma under the name of actual students at the targeted schools, claiming he was outside with an AR-15, a Glock and propane containers ready to fire at the buildings, according to the news release.
On April 16, 2021, and May 20, 2021, McCarty used the name of an actual homeowner in two calls to police where he claimed he killed his wife, would kill "everyone," blow up the home and had four bombs planted outside of a retail location, the news release said. The news release did not indicate in what state this home was located.
The FBI in 2008 identified swatting as "faking an emergency that draws a response from law enforcement — usually a SWAT team."
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