High-profile hacker Guccifer sentenced to 52 months behind bars

[Shawn Knight]

Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, best known online by the handle Guccifer, has received a 52-month prison sentence after pleading guilty before U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris of the Eastern District of Virginia to unauthorized access to a protected computer and aggravated identity theft this past May.

The 44-year-old, who was extradited to the U.S. back in 2014, admitted to targeting the personal e-mail and social media accounts of around 100 Americans over a period of 14 months via hacking, fraud, identity theft and harassment.

According to the Department of Justice, most of his victims were high-profile targets including an immediate family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former member of the U.S. Cabinet, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former presidential advisor, just to name a few.

Prosecutors were seeking a maximum penalty of four-and-a-half years while Lazar’s public defender, Shannon S. Quill, called for a sentence of three years. The Washington Post notes that Quill described Lazar’s escapades as an “addiction” and argued that despite his brash online personality, the defendant was actually a devoted husband and father that was frustrated by his inability to find work in the computer industry.

Lazar has more to be concerned about than just his prison term in the U.S. Romania’s Justice Ministry has apparently asked Judge Cacheris to send Lazar back to Romania so he can serve time there first.

Image courtesy Reuters

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/66190-high-profile-hacker-guccifer-sentenced-52-months-behind.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

I find it pretty impressive that the US actually got him extradited for a cybercrime. As far as I know, that doesn't happen too often

 

[bmw95]

Lucifer + Gucci = Guccifer.

 

[Puiu]

Hey, they managed to catch one! Now all they need to do is catch the other hundreds of thousands of fellow romanian hackers ^_^
I need to hide my porn stash before FBI confiscates it!

 

[RedGuard]

I thought that's a way to get a good-paying job in the US. You show you can hack stuff then you get "acquired" and leave Romania for good and you're finally recognized by your abilities. Because it's well known that in Romania only people with "relationships" get the job, not the ones who are actually qualified.

 

[davislane1]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

I find it pretty impressive that the US actually got him extradited for a cybercrime. As far as I know, that doesn't happen too often

I thought that's a way to get a good-paying job in the US. You show you can hack stuff then you get "acquired" and leave Romania for good and you're finally recognized by your abilities. Because it's well known that in Romania only people with "relationships" get the job, not the ones who are actually qualified.

He hacked Clinton. He's lucky he's still alive (for now).

 

[danny22]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

I find it pretty impressive that the US actually got him extradited for a cybercrime. As far as I know, that doesn't happen too often

I thought that's a way to get a good-paying job in the US. You show you can hack stuff then you get "acquired" and leave Romania for good and you're finally recognized by your abilities. Because it's well known that in Romania only people with "relationships" get the job, not the ones who are actually qualified.

He hacked Clinton. He's lucky he's still alive (for now).

Well Black-hat Hacking is definitely not the right way to get noticed and get a job. If he rely wanted a job he could have done it in a different manner.

 

[petert]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

I find it pretty impressive that the US actually got him extradited for a cybercrime. As far as I know, that doesn't happen too often

LOL there is nothing to be impressed by, just politics - countries like Romania will always extradite their citizens to US without questions asked, no matter the crime at stake. UK for instance will inquire and many times will not extradite their citizens (at least for cybercrimes).

 

[petert]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

This fellow Guccifer has 44 years old - as far as I know he has the pride of a teenager,

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

I find it pretty impressive that the US actually got him extradited for a cybercrime. As far as I know, that doesn't happen too often

I thought that's a way to get a good-paying job in the US. You show you can hack stuff then you get "acquired" and leave Romania for good and you're finally recognized by your abilities. Because it's well known that in Romania only people with "relationships" get the job, not the ones who are actually qualified.

He hacked Clinton. He's lucky he's still alive (for now).

Well Black-hat Hacking is definitely not the right way to get noticed and get a job. If he rely wanted a job he could have done it in a different manner.

I think this is a thing his lawyer made up to get him a lighter sentence. He only got a public defender - he didn't get too much defense honestly. You can get a job in Romania or EU for that matter if you are skilled enough, especially in IT which are highly sought. However, script kiddies or people who only have social engineering skills might not be that employable you know. Stalking people online to get enough of their private life details in order to hack into their email accounts is not a very looked for skill on the job market.

 

[Puiu]

I thought that's a way to get a good-paying job in the US. You show you can hack stuff then you get "acquired" and leave Romania for good and you're finally recognized by your abilities. Because it's well known that in Romania only people with "relationships" get the job, not the ones who are actually qualified.

it's the same in any country. relationships will always trump skill in the job market.

 

[captaincranky]

it's the same in any country. relationships will always trump skill in the job market.

Your considerable literary and observational skills notwithstanding, this a been reduced to a simple adage, at least for as I've been alive; "it's not what you know, it's who you know".

 

[peter p]

Personally I see that sentence as way too light. Good thing I'm not the judge or I'd given him 20 years without parole .... of course being a non-violent offense, no doubt our president would have committed it!

Why would the president commit this offense?

 

[captaincranky]

This fellow Guccifer has 44 years old - as far as I know he has the pride of a teenager,
I think this is a thing his lawyer made up to get him a lighter sentence. He only got a public defender - he didn't get too much defense honestly....[ ]....

No, the US Federal courts have what is known as "sentencing guidelines". Actually, eyebrows go up when judges deviate from it. It works on a points system, and isn't like state or local courts, you have to serve 85% of your sentence before you're considered for "early release". There's none of this crap like some state courts, where you get sentenced to something like, "6 to 23 months, and then get let out in 4 months, "for good behaviour".

Now, hopefully this imbecile in the White House now, won't get his way and cut loose all the dopers in the hoosegow. That's the surest way, to pipe the US economy into Afghanistan and South America, one nickel bag at a time.

 

[emmzo]

Funny thing is this guy has a 7 years sentence in Romania after he comes back from the US.