A social media influencer has been sentenced to 14 years in United States Federal prison for the attempted hijacking of a GoDaddy domain name. According to a United States DOJ press release, “Rossi Lorathio Adams II, age 27, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, also known as “Polo,” received the prison term after an April 18, 2019, jury verdict finding him guilty of one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by force, threats, and violence.”
Rossi Lorathio Adams II founded a social media company called “State Snaps” while he was a student at Iowa State University in 2015. Apparently at one time he had over a million followers on his social media profiles. He oftentimes used the phrase “Do It For State”. He tried to purchase the domain name DoItForState.com several times from the current owner, but he was unsuccessful.
So, he enlisted his cousin to help him break into the domain name owner’s house. According to the DOJ press release, in “June 2017, Adams enlisted his cousin, Sherman Hopkins, Jr., to break into the domain owner’s home and force him at gunpoint to transfer doitforstate.com to Adams. Hopkins was a convicted felon who lived in a homeless shelter at the time.”
The domain name owner was held at gunpoint and forced to log into his GoDaddy account and change ownership of the domain name. The domain name owner was shot in the leg.
“Adams was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams. Adams was sentenced to 168 months’ imprisonment. He was ordered to make nearly $9,000 in restitution. Adams was also ordered to pay costs of prosecution in the amount of $3,957.45 and to repay the Court $22,000 in attorney fees. Adams had court-appointed counsel during trial, but the Court later discovered Adams was earning significant amounts of money while the case was pending. Adams must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.”