Child support: Kentucky dad faces jail term for faking own death

Jesse Kipf

Child support: Kentucky dad faces jail term for faking own death

A Kentucky father has admitted to faking his death to avoid paying his ex-wife more than $100,000 in outstanding child support and is facing serious jail time for the elaborate ruse.

Jesse Kipf, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of computer fraud in federal court on March 29, according to the plea agreement obtained by Law & Crime.

Kipf was incident by the United States Attorney’s Office in November after investigators with the FBI in Louisville, Kentucky, the Department of the Attorney General for Hawaii, and the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office caught wind of his cyber crimes, according to a press release.

Kipf admitted to completing a Hawaii Death Certificate Worksheet in Jan. 2023, where he created a fake death certificate for himself and “assigned himself as the medical certifier for the case and certified that case.”

Prosecutors argued that his motivation to commit the cyber crimes was fueled by his desire to avoid paying “his outstanding child support obligations to his ex-wife,” the plea agreement states.