‘Swatting’ death leads to 5-year sentence
Man targeted because of his ‘@Tennessee’ handle on Twitter
A 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.
The 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.
Herring’s relatives told Nashville TV station WKRN that Herring was a 60-yearold, tech-savvy grandfather who had joined Twitter shortly after the social media platform launched and when most nicknames were readily available. One of his daughters told the station he chose the name “@Tennessee” because he loved the University of Tennessee Volunteers.
One of the conspirators called authorities in Sumner County to falsely report a murder at Herring’s home in April 2020, prosecutors said.
When police arrived at Herring’s home, guns drawn, Herring died of a heart attack, federal prosecutors said.
PIZZA DELIVERIES
The family members said they later learned that an anonymous caller had contacted Herring earlier that day to demand he hand over control of the @Tennessee screen name. He refused.
The family members also told WKRN that they received unwanted pizza deliveries right around the time Mark Herring died.
An indictment says these events fit a broader pattern: Sonderman and coconspirators would communicate with people who controlled high-value
social media nicknames to see if they would give up the account names voluntarily, the document says.
If so, the conspirators would take control of the accounts and sell the screen names. If a person refused to give up control of the nickname, Sonderman and coconspirators would obtain the personal information of that person and their family members and launch a harassment campaign, the federal authorities alleged.
One Oregon victim is identified in a federal indictment as K.G. Sonderman, and the coconspirators are accused of harassing her parents in Ohio by sending unwanted deliveries of food and by falsely reporting a fire at her parents’ house on April 14, 2020.
Around that date, the co-conspirators sent the victim messages that said “did your parent’s enjoy the firetrucks?” followed by “i plan on killing your parents next if you do not hand the username on instrgam over to me,” the indictment said.
Federal documents list other victims: S.K.K., a resident of New York, S.G., a resident of Virginia, and S.C., a resident of Michigan, as well as Herring, the man in Tennessee.
BOMB THREATS
A statement signed by federal prosecutors Debra L. Ireland and Joseph C. Murphy Jr. describes what happened to Herring.
“One call was made on April 27, 2020, in Sumner County, Tennessee. The caller, who had a British accent, said he was at a particular address, 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.”
“The address given was that of Mark Herring, who controlled the Twitter handle @Tennessee,” the statement said.
“Shortly before the call was placed, Herring’s address and phone number were posted by Shane Sonderman, the defendant, on Discord.” (Discord is a social media website often used for gaming.)
“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 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.”
Prosecutors argued that Sonderman deserved a stiff sentence because Herring had died, even if he had not directly caused the death.
“The defendant was part of a chain of events,” prosecutors wrote. “Had he not posted Mr. Herring’s information, which led a juvenile half-way across the globe calling for emergency responses to a non-emergency. They arrived prepared to take on a life-and-death situation. Mr. Herring died of a heart attack at gunpoint.”
SENTENCING HEARING
Online court records say Sonderman was first arrested around May 2020. He entered a guilty plea to conspiracy in March of this year.
Multiple witnesses spoke at the Wednesday morning sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Mark S. Norris, including victims, according to online records.
In papers filed before the hearing, Sonderman’s defense lawyer, Bryan R. Huffman, asked the judge for mercy.
“Defendant Shane Sonderman is twenty years of age. He is at the beginning of his young life, and unfortunately finds himself in a situation of his own making through youth and inexperience.”
“Being at the beginning of life, Mr. Sonderman does not have a history with the criminal justice system, and as noted in the [presentencing report], the instant conviction stems from conduct in which Mr. Sonderman engaged beginning when he was a juvenile.”
The report says Sonderman had an unstable home life. “Tragically, two weeks after Mr. Sonderman’s eighteenth birthday, his father committed suicide, an event which traumatized Mr. Sonderman, and such trauma continues to this day,” the defense lawyer wrote. “He has a family history of severe mental illness as outlined in the [presentencing report], and with which Mr. Sonderman struggles as well.”
The defense lawyer had asked the judge to impose a sentence of either 24 to 30 months, or if he calculated the credit for acceptance of responsibility differently, to a sentence of 27 to 33 months.
According to online records, Norris ruled Wednesday in favor of the government’s argument that Sonderman deserved a stiff sentence. But the judge also gave Sonderman some credit for acceptance of responsibility.
Norris sentenced Sonderman to 60 months incarceration — or five years. Other conditions of the sentence include access to mental health treatment and restrictions on access to the internet.