Somerset man accused of Fraud, Identity Theft after federal investigation

Carla Slavey, Commonwealth Journal, Somerset, Ky.
·3 min read

Nov. 22—A Somerset man has been accused of Computer Fraud, Identity Theft, and False Statements on Credit Applications after a joint investigation by the FBI, Kentucky Attorney General's Office, Department of the Attorney General for Hawaii and the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office.

Jesse Kipf, 38, has been indicted in Federal Court after being accused of hacking into a hotel chain's records as well as the websites of several state governments.

He is also accused of using the identification of three different people, and attempted to open credit accounts at at least two banks.

The indictment was announced Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kipf was arraigned in U.S. District Court in London on November 9, where he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The U.S. Attorney's Office stated "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. According to the indictment, Kipf illegally accessed the following websites: State of Arizona, State of Hawaii, GuestTek Interactive Entertainment, Ltd., State of Vermont, and Milestone, Inc. GuestTek Interactive Entertainment and Milestone are vendors of large hotel chains; but at this time, investigators have no evidence that hotel customer personal identifying information was compromised."

Further information was provided in a Forbes.com article, which states that the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Kipf "sold access to the personal data of Marriott hotel customers on a Russian forum."

The article quotes a Marriott spokesperson as saying that the breaches were through Marriott's contractors, and that their own systems were not hacked nor was there any impact to customer data.

The Forbes article also stated that "[Kipf] also hacked into a number of U.S. state death certificate registration agencies in an effort to fake his own demise."

The article states that Kipf had registered his death in Hawaii and Vermont, and that the FBI found more than 20 drivers licenses during a raid of his home.

Court documents state that Kipf's activity took place within Pulaski County and happened between December 2020 and June of this year.

Specifically, Kipf is first accused of attempting to open a credit card account at Discover Bank on December 27, 2020, using a "false social security number." He did the same at First Premier Bank on April 26, 2023.

In between those dates, he is accused of accessing the identifying information for three people for the purpose of committing wire fraud and computer fraud. The places where those individuals live are not stated in the court documents.

"Individuals believing they may be victims of the cyber intrusion scheme described herein are encouraged to visit the following website to obtain more information: https://justice.gov/usao-edky/information-victims-large-cases," the U.S. Attorney's Office reported.

Kipf is facing up to five years in prison for the computer fraud charges, up to two years each of the identity theft charges, and up to 30 years for the bank fraud charges.

A trial date has tentatively been set for January 17.

Carla Slavey can be reached at cslavey@somerset-kentucky.com