April 29, 2014

Dallas Man Associated with Anonymous Hacking Group Pleads Guilty to Federal Charges

DALLAS—Barrett Lancaster Brown, who has been associated with the hacking group Anonymous appeared in federal court this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul D. Stickney and pleaded guilty to three separate offenses that essentially resolve all three criminal indictments pending against him in the Northern District of Texas (NDTX), announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña.

Plea negotiations between the United States Attorney’s Office in the NDTX and Brown resulted in filing of a plea agreement and factual resume on April 2, 2014. In the documents unsealed last week and in open court this morning, Brown, 32, of Dallas, admitted his guilt and waived his right to a speedy and public trial.

Pursuant to the plea agreement, Brown pleaded guilty this morning to the felony offense of transmitting a threat to an FBI special agent in interstate commerce, as charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Dallas in October 2012. He also pleaded guilty to both counts of a superseding information that was filed on March 31, 2014, charging the felony offense of being an accessory after the fact to the unauthorized access to a protected computer and with the misdemeanor offense of interfering with the execution of a search warrant and aiding and abetting another person’s interference with the execution of a search warrant. In court this morning, Brown assured the magistrate judge that he was pleading guilty because he was guilty, and not for any other reason.

Brown faces a maximum statutory penalty of 60 months in federal prison and a $250,000 fine on the threat conviction; 30 months in federal prison and a $125,000 fine on the accessory after the fact conviction; and 12 months in federal prison and a $100,000 fine on the interference with the execution of a search warrant conviction.

According to the stipulations set forth in the factual resume, Brown understands that in determining the appropriate sentence, the district court may consider all the facts underlying and relevant to the offenses of conviction. The court is not limited to those facts set out in Brown’s stipulated factual resume. Sentencing is set for August 18, 2014, before U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay.

The Dallas office of the FBI investigated, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the NDTX prosecuted.