York Man Pleads Guilty to Making Interstate Threats and Identity Theft

Portland, Maine:  United States Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced that Austin Santoro, 23, of York, Maine, pled guilty today in U.S. District Court to transmitting threatening interstate communications and identity theft.

According to court documents, in January, the defendant sent an email to employees of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Department at their departmental email addresses threatening to sexually assault them at gunpoint. The defendant used an email “spoofing” service to make it appear that the email had been sent by the police chief.

On the same day, the defendant sent an email to employees of the York County Community College at their work addresses threatening to sexually assault them at gunpoint. The defendant used the same spoofing service to make it appear that the email had been sent by a college employee.

The defendant faces up to five years in prison for the threat charges, up to 20 years for the identity theft charges, and a $250,000 fine on each.  He will be sentenced after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation report by the U.S Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.