A Wethersfield man has been sentenced to a year and a day of jail time after pleading guilty to taking part in a series of hoax threats last year intended to draw responders, such as SWAT units and bomb squads.
On Tuesday, 22-year-old Matthew Tollis was sentenced to 12 months and a day of prison time and three years of supervised release for conspiring to engage in the malicious conveying of false information, primarily a bomb threat hoax, and participating in swatting incidents in Connecticut and other states in 2014. Federal prosecutors say he was a member of a group, TCOD, that made hoax threat calls alleging bomb threats, mass murder and hostage-taking.
The offense, known as "swatting," refers to bogus calls to draw SWAT teams. One such hoax occurred last April at the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs.
“Swatting is not a schoolboy prank, it’s a federal crime,” U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said in a statement. “These hoaxes have expended critical law enforcement resources and caused severe emotional distress for thousands of victims,” stated U.S. Attorney Daly. “It is our hope that this prosecution and the knowledge that this defendant will serve time in prison and live with a felony conviction for the remainder of his life will deter others from engaging in this immature, dangerous and criminal behavior.”
Tollis was arrested Sept. 3, 2014 in connection to a swatting incident at UConn and then again on Sept. 10 on a federal criminal complaint, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
He pleaded guilty on June 23.
Tollis told authorities he never spoke but laughed as others made the phony calls. The U.S. Attorney's office said Tollis admitted to identifying UConn, Boston University and other potential institutions for TCOD members to make threatening calls to and gathering phone numbers and other information about possible targets.
The swatting group's founder lives in Scotland and goes by "Verified," organizing at least five other swatting incidents in Connecticut and Massachusetts last year, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Chief U.S. District Judge Hall, based in New Haven, also ordered Tollis to complete 300 hours of community service. Other member of TCOD also live in the United Kingdom and the FBI is investigating the group with the assistance of U.K. authorities.
Tollis was released shortly after his arrest after posting bond. He is scheduled to report to prison on Nov. 5.
The FBI’s field offices in New Haven, Newark and Boston, the UConn Police Department, the Connecticut Intelligence Center, the Willimantic Police Department, the Monroe Police Department, the Harvard University Police Department, the Boston University Police Department, the Newton, Massachusetts Police Department, the Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Department and other state and local police assisted with the investigation, as well as the U.S. attorney's office for New Jersey.
