A YOUNG IMBECILE from Mukilteo, Washington who falsely triggered a heavily armed SWAT team deployment in Orange County, California a year ago by faking an emergency 911 call has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Randall T. Ellis, 19, pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana to false imprisonment by violence and making a false crime report, both felonies. In addition to receiving the prison sentence, he was also ordered to pay $14,765 in restitution, mostly to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Late in the evening of March 19 2007, Ellis hacked into the phone network and spoofed a 911 emergency call from a phone number chosen at random, which happened to map to a home in Lake Forest (where, in the Glengarry Glen Ross reality of the Southern California suburbs, there's neither a lake nor a forest).

Reports about his conversation with the 911 emergency dispatcher that night have varied. The Sheriff's Department dispatched a canine unit, a SWAT team and a helicopter, surrounding the home of Doug Bates, Stacey Cerwin-Bates and their two sleeping children.

The homeowner thought he heard a prowler outside in his back yard. When he armed himself with a kitchen knife and stepped out the door he was confronted at gunpoint by the SWAT team. He and his wife were held in handcuffs until the Sheriff's Department determined that the 911 call was a hoax.

Arrested following a six month investigation on October 12 of last year, Ellis was initially charged with unauthorised computer access, fraud and assault with an assault weapon by proxy in addition to the two charges to which he pleaded guilty on Thursday. µ

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Los Angeles Times