{"id":201846,"date":"2026-08-25T19:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T19:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/201846\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T19:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T19:02:11","slug":"arrested-man-allegedly-impersonated-nsa-elite-hacking-unit-supreme-court-chief-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/201846\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrested man allegedly impersonated NSA elite hacking unit, Supreme Court chief justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colorado police arrested a man last week over charges that he impersonated both Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and head of the National Security Agency\u2019s famed Tailored Access Operations hacking unit.<\/p>\n

Joshua Culver, also known as \u201cMaverick Young,\u201d appeared in a Colorado court Tuesday after his arrest stemming from an indictment in Indiana in July on four counts of falsely impersonating an officer of the court and one count of using a forged signature of a judge.<\/p>\n

Culver allegedly pretended to be an officer of the NSA in September of last year and said in that capacity he \u201ccould take adverse action\u201d against the Tippecanoe County sheriff\u2019s office in Lafayette, Ind. if it didn\u2019t provide him information he sought, including the location of his biological daughter.<\/p>\n

He also allegedly pretended to be an NSA officer again that month, then produced a document purportedly from the head of the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) elite hacking unit in February to the Clerk of the Lake County, Ind. Superior Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe document, which purported to bear official letterhead, falsely stated that it was a directive issued by the \u2018Director of TAO\u2019 and that Culver was a \u2018federal asset\u2019 active in multiple investigations,\u201d the indictment reads. \u201cThe document commanded that certain actions be taken as required by \u2018federal directive,\u2019 including that the case pending against Culver be dismissed with prejudice, that warrants be quashed, and that Lake County officials cooperate with a \u2018federal audit\u2019 of individuals identified in the document.\u201d<\/p>\n

TAO has gone by the name of Office of Computer Network Operations since 2017<\/a>, although in July it indicated that it was resuming its old name<\/a>. TAO garnered unflattering attention in 2017 after the global WannaCry ransomware outbreak used an exploit that the NSA developed.<\/p>\n

The indictment also alleges that Culver used a forged signature of Roberts in September for an \u201cOrder of Dismissal With Prejudice\u201d in a case against Culver in Grant County, Indiana.<\/p>\n

A defender appointed to Culver did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n

You can read the indictment below. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Tim<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWritten by Tim Starks
\n\t\t\tTim Starks is senior reporter at CyberScoop. His previous stops include working at The Washington Post, POLITICO and Congressional Quarterly. An Evansville, Ind. native, he’s covered cybersecurity since 2003. Email Tim here: tim.starks@cyberscoop.com<\/a>.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado police arrested a man last week over charges that he impersonated both Supreme Court Chief Justice John…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[146],"tags":[90275,535,90276,90277,73105,90278,90279],"class_list":["post-201846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-john-roberts","tag-cyber-offense","tag-john-roberts","tag-national-security-agency-nsa","tag-ransomware","tag-tao","tag-u-s-courts","tag-wannacry"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117157701597158206","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}