Accused Revenge Porn Site Operator Pleads Guilty In San Francisco Court To Email Hacking
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A Los Angeles man accused of being an accomplice in a now-defunct website that featured stolen nude photos has pleaded guilty in San Francisco Superior Court to a charge of disrupting the computer access of a victim whose email he hacked.
Charles Evens, 26, of the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, entered the plea before Superior Court Judge Daniel Flores on Wednesday and will be sentenced on Aug. 19.
The case was prosecuted by the lawyers from the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Harris alleged in a press statement that Evens coordinated the hacking of more than 300 email accounts.
A complaint filed by lawyers from Harris's office in San Francisco Superior Court on June 10 accused him of 11 counts of obtaining unauthorized access to 11 individuals' Gmail accounts and altering data in those accounts.
Harris's press secretary, Kristin Ford, said Evens pleaded guilty to one of those counts. She said prosecution and defense attorneys agreed Evens's sentence will be three years and will be concurrent with any sentence he may receive in a separate federal case pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
In the federal case, Evens is accused of conspiring with Hunter Moore, 28, of Woodland, the operator of a now-defunct revenge and pornography website called isanyoneup.com.
Evens's role in the conspiracy was allegedly to steal nude and sexually explicit photos from numerous victims' email accounts for Moore to post on the website, according to a 2013 federal grand jury indictment.
Evens allegedly sold the stolen photos to Moore for up to $900 each, the indictment said.
Both men were charged in the federal indictment with conspiring to gain unauthorized computer access for financial gain, seven counts of stealing information from victims' email accounts and seven counts of identity theft.
Moore pleaded guilty in federal court in February to two counts and will be sentenced on Aug. 12. He admitted in a written guilty plea that his website contained a combination of nude "revenge" photos submitted by individuals seeking revenge on the victims, and additional nude photos allegedly stolen by Evens.
The federal charges remain pending against Evens and his trial is scheduled in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on July 14, according to the court docket.
Ford said the state court charges filed by Harris were lodged in San Francisco rather than Los Angeles because the victims used gmail accounts operated by Mountain View-based Google.
Harris said Evens hacked into the victims' accounts after tricking the victims into giving him their Gmail recovery codes.
She said in the statement, "Evens is being held accountable for stealing victims' most private and intimate images and profiting from this illegal activity."
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