LOS ANGELES – A San Fernando Valley man who hacked into e-mail accounts to steal nude photos that were later posted on a notorious “revenge porn” website has pleaded guilty to federal computer crime and identity theft charges.
Charles Evens, 26, of Studio City, pleaded guilty late Wednesday afternoon 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.
Appearing before United States District Judge Dolly M. Gee, Evens pleaded guilty to the two felony charges and admitted that he obtained nude pictures that were posted on the revenge porn website, http://isanyoneup.com. The operator of that website – Hunter Moore, 29, of Woodland, California – pleaded guilty in February to the same two offenses that Evens admitted to yesterday.
On his website, Moore posted nude and sexually explicit photos that had been submitted without the permission of victims. To obtain more photos for the website, Evens gained unauthorized access – in other words, hacked into – Google e-mail accounts. 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, as both men have now admitted in court.
In late 2011, Moore sent an email to Evens that stated Moore would like as many nude pictures from hacked emails 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. One of the photos – a topless picture of a female victim – was posted on isanyoneup.com on December 29, 2011.
When he pleaded guilty yesterday, Evens admitted that he hacked into email accounts belonging to hundreds of victims.
As a result of the guilty pleas entered yesterday, Evens faces a statutory maximum sentence of seven years in federal prison, which includes a mandatory two-year term for the aggravated identity theft charge.
Evens is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Gee on November 16.
Judge Gee is scheduled to sentence Moore on August 12, at which time he also faces a maximum possible penalty of seven years in federal prison, and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.
The investigation in this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
