February 25, 2015

Man Who Operated ‘Revenge Porn’ Website Pleads Guilty in Hacking Scheme That Yielded Nude Photos from Google E-Mail Accounts

LOS ANGELES—A Northern California man who operated the Internet’s best-known “revenge porn” website pleaded guilty late this afternoon to federal computer hacking and identity theft charges for hiring another man to hack into e-mail accounts to steal nude photos that were later posted on his website.

Hunter Moore, 28, of Woodland, California, who operated the now-defunct isanyoneup.com, pleaded guilty today to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information for purposes of private financial gain and one count of aggravated identity theft.

As a result of his guilty pleas, Moore faces a statutory maximum sentence of seven years in federal prison, and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.

Moore pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Dolly M. Gee, who is scheduled to sentence the defendant on June 24.

The alleged hacker—Charles Evens, 26, of Studio City, California—still faces a host of federal charges and is scheduled to go on trial before Judge Gee on March 17. Evens faces charges contained in a 15-count grand jury indictment that accuses him of conspiracy, seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and seven counts of aggravated identity theft.

Moore operated the website http://isanyoneup.com, where he posted, among other things, nude or sexually explicit photos of victims. The pictures were submitted by individuals, without the victim’s permission, for purposes of revenge, Moore admitted in court. However, to obtain more photos for the website, Moore instructed Evens to gain unauthorized access to—in other words, to hack into—Google e-mail accounts, according to Moore’s plea agreement. Moore sent payments to Evens in exchange for nude photos unlawfully obtained from the victims’ accounts. Moore then posted the illegally obtained photos on his website, without the victims’ consent, he admitted in the plea agreement.

The plea agreement discusses one specific incident in late 2011 when Moore sent an e-mail to Evens that stated Moore would like as many nude pictures from hacked e-mails accounts as possible. In response, Evens accessed a victim’s e-mail account without authorization and obtained pictures, Evens provided the pictures to Moore, and Moore paid $145.70 to defendant Evens using Paypal. One of the nude photos was posted on isnayoneup.com on December 29, 2011, according to the plea agreement.

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.

The investigation in this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.