What's Inside Christopher Chaney's Indictment? [FULL TEXT]
Out on $10,000 bond, ordered to stay with parents, avoid Internet, faces 121 years imprisonment
Christopher Chaney, the 35-year-old man suspected of hacking Scarlett Johansson's nude photographs that went public in September, was indicted on Wednesday on 26 counts of computer hacking, aggravated identity theft and illegal wiretapping.
It helps get out the message that cyber-hacking is a real threat, U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte said of the case, describing those who engage in such activity as scum, according to The Associated Press.
According to the indictment filed in the Central District Court of California at 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Chaney also went by the aliases trainreqsuckswhat, anonygrrl and jaxjaguar911.
The court document stated that Chaney knowingly illegally accessed the accounts of other celebrities, including Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera, Simone Harouche and Renee Olstead. Chaney allegedly gained access to the accounts of more than 50 people living in Los Angeles, Calif.
After hacking the accounts, Chaney allegedly set the e-mail forwarding feature to send a copy of every e-mail received in the celebrities' account to a different e-mail account he controlled, according to the indictment.
He then forwarded the information to others.
Chaney accessed Kunis' account on Dec. 18, 2010, hacked Harouche's and Aguilera's account on Nov. 13, 2010 and Johansson's account on Dec. 14, 2010 and Jan. 13, 2011.
Chaney, who is from Jacksonville, Fla., is now facing up to 121 years in prison, the FBI said in a press conference on Wednesday when they spoke about the probe they call Operation Hackerazzi.
Operation Hackerazzi is an ongoing effort to find the person or people responsible for publicly sharing celebrities' private conversations and nude photographs, which is gained through illegally after breaking into their personal e-mail accounts.
Other people who were mentioned in the indictment were listed as only initials. The celebrities who were mentioned in the indictment agreed to have their name released, according to the FBI.
Johansson has said she feels the invasion of privacy was wrong.
The FBI has been investigating celebrity hacking cases for a year. Federal officials said Chaney seemed to have acted alone and appeared to have no plans to contact the stars or sell the information he found.
The case brings us to a new word in expanding lexicon of cybercrime - 'hackerrazzi,' said Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, to the Los Angeles Times. We continue to receive complaints involving the targeting of high-profile figures.
Read the indictment here.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.