One by one, the Anonymous hackers who rampaged across the Internet in 2011 and early 2012 are confessing to their actions and asking for lenient sentences. The latest, Jeremy Hammond, may not be so lucky.
On Tuesday, Hammond pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to one count of computer fraud and abuse in response to charges that he hacked into the network of the privacy intelligence firm Stratfor, stealing millions of emails that eventually were given to WikiLeaks and published over the course of 2012. The plea agreement could carry a sentence of as much as 10 years in prison, as well as millions of dollars in restitution payments, though Hammond’s official sentence won’t be handed down until September.
In a statement released on his supporters’ website, FreeJeremy.net, Hammond confessed to helping to penetrate a variety of corporate and government targets–albeit for ethical reasons, not for profit–as part of the LulzSec hacker group that split off from Anonymous in 2011 and went on a summer-long hacking spree that included the security firm HB Gary, Newscorp, Sony, and several military contractors. “Now that I have pleaded guilty it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites,” he writes. “Those others included military and police equipment suppliers, private intelligence and information security firms, and law enforcement agencies. I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors. I did what I believe is right.”
Hammond was one of several hackers caught in an FBI dragnet that penetrated LulzSec with the help of informant Hector Monsegur, a.k.a. Sabu, a 28-year-old New Yorker who doubled as one of Anonymous’ most active hackers and organizers. With Monsegur’s involvement, the stolen Stratfor documents were even stored for a time on a server owned by the FBI.
As part of his plea agreement, Hammond would not be asked to testify against any fellow hackers, according to Nathan Tempey, a supporter and communications coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild.”The terms include that he’s not asked to help the government to prosecute anyone else, and he’s not providing any new information about any crimes,” says Tempey.
In his statement, Hammond admits that he was likely to lose at trial and would face as much as 30 years in prison without a plea deal. Even if he were to win, he notes that the government has threatened to indict him on other charges. “If I had won this trial I would likely have been shipped across the country to face new but similar charges in a different district,” he writes. “The process might have repeated indefinitely. Ultimately I decided that the most practical route was to accept this plea with a maximum of a ten year sentence and immunity from prosecution in every federal court.”
Four other members of LulzSec were sentenced earlier this month in a London court, but received sentences of 32 months in prison at most and 300 hours of community service at least.
A petition posted to Change.org by Hammond’s brother Jason Hammond asks the judge in Hammond’s case, Loretta Preska, to sentence him to time served, given that he’s already spent 15 months in lockup. “Jeremy did nothing for personal gain and everything in hopes of making the world a better place,” reads Hammond’s brother’s petition. “Jeremy is facing a maximum sentence of ten years, but the minimum is zero. He has been in jail since March 2012 awaiting trial and now sentencing. It’s time for him to come home.”
Original Article posted by Andy Greenberg at http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/28/anonymous-hacker-jeremy-hammond-pleads-guilty-to-stratfor-hack-could-face-10-years-in-prison/