A private first class at Fort Hood spent more than a year and a half hacking phone companies and trying to extort them while he was on active duty in the Army. A federal judge in Seattle sentenced him Sept. 25 to 70 months in prison and ordered him to pay $294,978 in restitution. He is 22.
What happened
- He enlisted in June 2022 as a signal support systems specialist.
- From April 2023 to Dec. 18, 2024, he and others went after at least 10 organizations by stealing login credentials for their networks. One of their tools was a program called SSH Brute, and the Justice Department says he helped develop it.
- The crew traded stolen credentials in Telegram group chats. They threatened to post stolen data on cybercrime forums such as BreachForums and XSS.is unless victims paid, sold at least some of it, and used it for other fraud, including SIM swapping.
- In total, they tried to extort at least $1 million from the companies whose data they took.
- The Justice Department says all of it happened while he was on active duty. He was a private first class at Fort Hood, then called Fort Cavazos, when he was arrested Dec. 20, 2024.
- He pleaded guilty in two federal cases in Seattle. In March 2025 he admitted two counts of unlawful transfer of confidential phone records. In July 2025 he admitted conspiracy to commit wire fraud, extortion in relation to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.
What the feds said
The head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said he spent “more than a year and a half betraying the trust placed in him as an active duty soldier” and that he “even sought to traffic stolen information to a foreign intelligence service.”
The first assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle said he tried to blackmail hacking victims for more than $1 million. “He has repeatedly shown disregard for the privacy and security of others, the rules of the military, and the law,” he said, adding that the hacking was “motivated by a desire to achieve status within criminal hacking communities.”
The FBI’s Cyber Division said the FBI, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Army identified and arrested him within weeks of his public extortion threats. The aggravated identity theft count alone carried a mandatory two years on top of any other prison time.
Why an E-4 should care
- 70 months is longer than his entire Army career.
- He was an E-3 hiding behind a screen name. Federal investigators and the Army found him within weeks of his public threats.
- Telegram chats and forum posts are evidence. The court documents in this case describe both.
- The $294,978 in restitution comes on top of the prison time.
- If someone in your barracks brags about selling stolen data, Army CID takes tips.
Merch for the network
For anyone whose search history already has them on a list: the Federal Watchlist Tee. For the signal shop keeping the network up the legal way: the Error 404: Motivation Not Found Hoodie.
Cover photo: A U.S. Cyber Command member works in the Integrated Cyber Center, Joint Operations Center at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, April 2, 2021. The photo is unrelated to the Fort Hood case. Photo by Josef Cole, U.S. Cyber Command, via DVIDS (ID 6762557), https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6762557/uscybercom-integrated-intelligence-center-joint-operations-center. The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.
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Sources
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Former U.S. Soldier Sentenced for Hacking and Extortion Scheme That Exposed Sensitive Data of U.S. Government Official,” Sept. 25, 2026, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-us-soldier-sentenced-hacking-and-extortion-scheme-exposed-sensitive-data-us
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Former U.S. Soldier Pleads Guilty to Hacking and Extortion Scheme Involving Telecommunications Companies,” July 15, 2025, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-us-soldier-pleads-guilty-hacking-and-extortion-scheme-involving-telecommunications
- Stars and Stripes, “Former soldier sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for hacking, ransom scheme,” by Rose L. Thayer, Sept. 28, 2026, https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-09-28/former-soldier-sentenced-hacking-scheme-22993287.html
- Stars and Stripes, “Former Fort Hood soldier pleads guilty to role in hacking databases, demanding ransoms,” July 17, 2025, https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2025-07-17/fort-hood-soldier-hacker-ransom-18476788.html
- Task & Purpose, “Former Fort Hood soldier sentenced to nearly six years for hacking, extortion plot,” by Nicholas Slayton, Sept. 27, 2026
- DVIDS, “USCYBERCOM Integrated Intelligence Center, Joint Operations Center” (image 6762557), U.S. Cyber Command, April 2, 2021, https://www.dvidshub.net/image/6762557/uscybercom-integrated-intelligence-center-joint-operations-center
