Two California Men Arrested in E-Mail Hacking Scheme That Yielded Nude Photos That were Posted on ‘Revenge Porn’ Website
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 23, 2014 |
LOS ANGELES—The FBI arrested two men this morning for allegedly conspiring to hack into victims’ e-mail accounts to steal nude photos that were later posted on the “revenge porn” website isanyoneup.com.
Hunter Moore, 27, of Woodland, who operated isanyoneup.com, and Charles Evens, 25, of Studio City, were arrested without incident by special agents with the FBI. Both men are expected to make initial court appearances this afternoon—Moore in federal court in Sacramento and Evens in United States District Court in Los Angeles.
Moore and Evens are charged in a 15-count indictment unsealed after they were arrested this morning. The indictment charges both men with conspiracy, seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, and seven counts of aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, Moore operated the website isanyoneup.com, where he posted, among other things, nude or sexually explicit photos of victims. The pictures were submitted without the victim’s permission for purposes of revenge. However, to obtain more photos to populate the site, Moore allegedly instructed Evens to gain unauthorized access to—in other words, to hack into—victims’ e-mail accounts. Moore sent payments to Evens in exchange for nude photos obtained unlawfully from the victims’ accounts. Moore then posted the illegally obtained photos on his website without the victims’ consent. The indictment alleges that Evens hacked into e-mail accounts belonging to hundreds of victims.
An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.
If convicted, Moore and Evens face up to five years in federal prison for each of the conspiracy and computer hacking counts. The charge of aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory two-year sentence to run consecutive to any other sentence imposed in the case.
The investigation that led to this morning’s arrests of Moore and Evens was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.