Hacking celebrity email accounts and mobile devices could land one man a decade of prison time.
Alonzo Knowles of Freeport, Bahamas reportedly plead guilty on Monday in a federal court in New York to certain criminal charges connected to his hacking habit. The Wall Street Journal reports that he plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement and identity theft.
Knowles was arrested this past December after trying to sell celebrities’ private information. He had collected personal data and property from their email accounts, including social security numbers, unreleased scripts, and explicit pictures and video footage.
The 24-year-old hacker was caught on December 21 by an undercover law enforcement agent posing as a buyer. He told him that he had access to data worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from about 130 different email accounts and phone numbers. When Knowles accepted the agent’s offer of $80,000 in cash, he was arrested.
His sentencing is scheduled for August 25 and, as it states in the court documents, he could receive 10 years in prison.