According to the BBC, a second man has been charged in connection with the hacking of celebrity online accounts.
Edward Majerczyk, was detained by authorities for stealing personal information from over 300 Gmail and iCloud accounts belonging to mainly female A-listers.
Majerczyk has now been sentenced to nine months in federal prison and ordered to pay an unnamed celebrity £4,900 in damages. He was not charged with selling or posting the private information online but charged with organising the phishing scam.
His lawyer claimed that the illegal material was only for his 'personal use'.
It was the biggest news story of 2014. Referred to as 'Celebgate' and 'The Fappening', nearly 500 personal images belonging to mainly female stars were leaked online via platforms such as 4Chan.
Actresses involved in the scandal included the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton.
On 29 October we wrote...
Two men have been detained in connection with the celebrity nude photo scandal, though they are not thought to have worked together.
Ryan Collins, a 36-year-old from Pennsylvania, plead guilty in May "to one count of unauthorised access to a protected computer to obtain information".
A second man Edward Majerczyk, was also detained by authorities, for stealing personal information from over 300 Gmail and iCloud accounts. Though the pair are not thought to have worked together.
Ryan Collins admitted to running a two-year phishing scam, gaining the passwords of the celebrities using fake email addresses. A number of personal photographs ended up online, though there is no evidence to suggest that Collins leaked the nude images.
According to a statement from the Pennsylvania US attorney Bruce Brandler: “In some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups. When the victims responded, Collins then had access to the victims' e-mail accounts.”
He continued: “After illegally accessing the e-mail accounts, Collins obtained personal information including nude photographs and videos. In addition, Collins ran a modeling scam in which he tricked his victims into sending him nude photographs.”
Collins has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, following a plea deal with authorities earlier this year to reduce his jail time from a potential five years.
On 3 July we wrote...
A second man charged with the 2014 celebrity hacking scandal is expected to plead guilty.
Edward Majerczyk is one of the hackers who stole private information and photos from over 300 Gmail and iCloud accounts, targeting celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton.
The scandal was referred to at the time as ‘CelebGate’ and ‘The Fappening’ and saw almost 500 photos, many featuring nudity and mostly of female stars, uploaded to imageboard 4Chan and shared across multiple platforms.
Ryan Collins recently pleaded guilty to similar charges, although it appears the pair were not working as a team. There is no evidence that either of the charged distributed the material, but accessing the data illegally is a federal offence in itself.
Speaking at the time of the leak, Jennifer Lawrence told Vanity Fair:
“Just because I'm a public figure, just because I'm an actress, does not mean that I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It's my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can't believe that we even live in that kind of world.
“People forget that we're human.”
On 17 March, we wrote...
An American man has been charged for the celebrity photo hacking incident that took place in 2014.
The major photo leak saw naked pictures of stars like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst posted on the website 4chan.
36-year-old Pennsylvania resident Ryan Collins has reportedly signed a plea agreement, pleading guilty to a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after he was charged with computer hacking.
According to TMZ, the plea document states that Collins hacked into the computers of over 100 victims (with around 20 of them celebrities) to download photos. He reportedly gained access to the victims’ Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts using a phishing scheme.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the hacking incident in 2014, Jennifer Lawrence said: ‘This is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a violation […] The law needs to change and we need to change.’
She added: ‘I can’t even describe to anybody what it feels like to have my naked body shoot across the world like a news flash against my will. It just makes me feel like a piece of meat that’s being passed around for a profit.’
Collins faces up to 5 years in prison, but as he has pleaded guilty, he may only serve a sentence of around 18 months. While he faces time for hacking crimes, he has not been charged with leaking the images.
It’s unlikely that Collins acted alone: last year it emerged that the FBI had seized computers belonging to Emilio Herrera, who is based in Chicago, but charges have not yet been pressed against him.
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