Kristopher Brent Cobb, Identity Theft and Fraud, California 2024

Kristopher Brent Cobb, 41, of Marina del Rey, has been sentenced to 45 months in federal prison for a cold-blooded scheme to exploit the identities of a murdered married couple within days of their deaths. The brazen fraud netted Cobb more than $137,000 through unauthorized access to bank accounts, credit cards, and retirement funds, all while their surviving child grappled with unimaginable loss.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter handed down the sentence, ordering Cobb to pay $137,573 in restitution. At the hearing, Judge Walter condemned the crimes as having inflicted “immense grief” on the surviving daughter of the victims — a girl left alone after her father killed her mother and younger brother before turning the gun on himself.

On September 11, 2019, the man identified as “Victim 1” carried out a murder-suicide, killing his wife (“Victim 2”) and son (“Victim 3”), attempting to kill his daughter (“Victim 4”), and then taking his own life. Cobb, having read news reports of the tragedy, pounced within 48 hours, creating fake email accounts in the dead couple’s names and using Victim 1’s phone number to trick Capital One into adding him as an authorized user on a credit card.

By September 28, 2019, Cobb had attempted to withdraw $8,566 from a Los Angeles ATM under Victim 1’s name. Days later, he impersonated Victim 1 at an Alhambra cellphone store, signing a sales agreement using Victim 2’s phone number and charging $124 to Victim 1’s Citibank card. He then orchestrated a scheme with an accomplice to reroute Victim 1’s Barclays credit card to a post office box in Woodland Hills, which he accessed using a key in November 2019.

Ultimately, Cobb triggered losses totaling $146,139. This included $122,488 siphoned from the couple’s TD Ameritrade account to buy gold shipped to Los Angeles addresses. He also made $16,450 in unauthorized purchases and ATM withdrawals under Victim 1’s name across California and Puerto Rico, and transferred $3,200 from Victim 1’s Chase savings to checking to cover a fraudulent check.

“[Cobb’s] predation upon Victims 1 and 2 was not only to plunder the estate of Victims 1 and 2, but was perpetrated upon Victim 4 at the most difficult and complicated moment of her life,” prosecutors wrote. They called the crimes “grotesque.” Cobb pleaded guilty in August 2022 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. The U.S. Secret Service led the investigation, with prosecution by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Roger A. Hsieh and Valerie L. Makarewicz of the Major Frauds Section.

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