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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A Marina del Rey man was sentenced Monday to 45 months in federal prison for stealing the identities of a married couple who died days earlier in a murder-suicide and stealing more than $137,000 from their bank accounts, credit cards, and retirement accounts.
Kristopher Brent Cobb, 41, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Walter, who also ordered him to pay $137,573 in restitution. At the hearing in Los Angeles federal court, the judge said that Cobb's crimes had caused "immense grief" to the married couple's surviving child.
Cobb pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
The murder-suicide took place Sept. 11, 2019, when a man identified in court documents as "victim 1" murdered his wife and their son, attempted to kill their daughter, and then committed suicide.
Two days later, Cobb, having read news coverage of the murder-suicide, created two fraudulent email addresses -- one in the killer's name and the other in the wife's name. Cobb then used the killer's cell phone number and requested that Capital One Bank add him as an authorized user of the dead man's credit card, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
On Sept. 28, 2019, Cobb -- using the dead man's Capital One Bank credit card in his own name -- attempted to withdraw about $8,566 from an ATM in Los Angeles.
In total, Cobb caused losses of about $146,139, including roughly $122,488 in losses from unauthorized transfers from victim 1 and the dead woman's TD Ameritrade account to purchase gold shipped to addresses in the Los Angeles area, prosecutors said.
In late October 2019, Cobb also made about $16,450 in unauthorized purchases and attempted ATM cash withdrawals using various credit cards in the dead man's name, including purchases in California and Puerto Rico, according to prosecutors.
Finally, Cobb made about $3,200 in unauthorized transfers from victim 1's Chase Bank savings account to the dead man's Chase Bank checking account to fund an unauthorized check.
Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Cobb's crimes were "grotesque."