Connecticut man sentenced for swatting incidents in Monmouth County

A Connecticut man has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison in connection with multiple swatting incidents at schools nationwide, including New Jersey, according to Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.  

22-year-old Matthew Tollis of Wethersfield, also was ordered Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven to be under supervision for three years following his release from prison and to perform 300 hours of community service for his role in orchestrating the swatting incidents in 2014, which involved two in Monmouth County.

Swatting is when a hoax call is made to any emergency service to elicit an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical incident. Incidents typically produce the deployment of SWAT units, bomb squads, and other police units, as well as the evacuations of schools, businesses and residences.

Court documents revealed a fake threat was phoned into St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel on January 15, 2014. Tollis claimed he was accosted in a school bathroom by a masked gun with sarin gas who was threatening to blow up the school.

The following day, a fake threat claimed there was a bomb in a lab at Allentown High School, prompting the evacuation of about 3,000 students in the Upper Freehold Regional School District.

"Swatting is not a schoolboy prank, it's a federal crime," said U.S. Attorney Daly. "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."

According to court documents and statements made in court, Tollis was a member of a group primarily consisting of Microsoft X-Box gamers who referred to themselves as "TCOD" (TeAM CrucifiX or Die).

Tollis and his TCOD associates used the Internet communication service Skype to make hoax threats involving bombs, hostage taking, firearms, and mass murder. Tollis was identified as a participant in at least six of these swatting incidents, including a bomb threat to the University of Connecticut's Admissions Department on April 3, 2014. The hoax call resulted in a three-hour, campus-wide lockdown and required campus police and the Connecticut State Police's Bomb Squad, Emergency Services Unit and SWAT teams to respond.

Tollis also participated in TCOD swatting calls to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston University, the two high schools in New Jersey and a high school in Texas.

Tollis has admitted that he identified potential institutions, including UConn and Boston University, for TCOD members to make the threatening calls, and gathered telephone numbers and other information about the targeted institutions.

The investigation revealed that one of the founders of TCOD, a resident of Scotland who has identified himself as "Verified," was responsible for at least five additional swatting incidents in Connecticut and Massachusetts in 2014. Other members of TCOD also reside in the U.K., and the FBI continues to coordinate its investigation with law enforcement authorities in the U.K.

Tollis was arrested on September 3, 2014, on state charges stemming from the UConn swatting incident, and he was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on September 10, 2014. On June 23, 2015, he waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in the malicious conveying of false information, namely a bomb threat hoax.

Tollis has been free on bond and must report to prison on November 5, 2015.