York Man Sentenced to Two Years for Making Interstate Threat and Identity Theft

Portland, Maine:  United States Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced that Austin Santoro, 23, of York, Maine, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court by Judge D. Brock Hornby to two years in prison and three years of supervised release for transmitting a threatening interstate communication and identity theft. The defendant pleaded guilty on December 17, 2018.

According to court documents, in January of 2018, 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 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 investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.