The FBI is inside Anonymous: Hacker Sabu has sentencing delayed again for helping the feds
Published time: February 27, 2013 00:32
TagsAnonymous, Court, Crime, Hacking, Law, USAThe former LulzSec hacker that turned in his colleagues to the FBI will forego sentencing for another six months while he continues to assist the government in catching supposed computer criminals.As RT reported
last week, Hector Xavier Monsegur, the man behind the hacker alias
“Sabu,” was absent from federal court on Friday despite previously
being scheduled to appear for sentencing that morning in regards to
the 12 criminal charges he pleaded guilty to in mid-2011. Only now,
however, has it been confirmed that Monsegur avoided sentencing
because he is continuing to maintain a working relationship with
federal agents.On Monday, the leaking website Cryptome published a copy
[.pdf]
of a request from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern
District of New York’s in which the court is asked to adjourn
Monsegur’s sentencing date until August 23, 2013 “in light of
the defendant’s ongoing cooperation with the Government.”
According to the copy published by Cryptome, the request was
approved by District Judge Loretta Preska, in turn granting
Monsegur another six months of freedom while he continues to aid
authorities.Monsegur was arrested in June 2011 and pleaded guilty two months
later to a dozen charges relating to the hacker group LulzSec, or
Lulz Security, an off-shoot of the shadowy hacktivist movement
Anonymous. Monsegur took the blame for a laundry list of crimes
that included multiple counts of conspiracy to engage in computer
hacking and other high-tech crimes, although news of his arrest and
plea were initially kept under seal so that investigators could use
the single father of two to infiltrate Anonymous on behalf of the
FBI.“It was because of his kids. He didn’t want to go away to
prison and leave them. That’s how we got him,” a law
enforcement official involved in the case told Fox News last year
on condition of anonymity.When news broke last March of an international sting targeting
hacktivists, though, it was unearthed that Monsegur had become a
turncoat for the feds. Using a computer provided to him by the
authorities, he had fellow hacker Jeremy Hammond upload files that
were illegally obtained from private intelligence firm Stratfor in
December 2011.“At the direction of the FBI,” reads the
indictment against Hammond, a confidential informant provided
him and his co-conspirators with “a computer server in New York,
New York, which could be used to store data, and to which Hammond
and his co-conspirators in fact transferred data.” By that
time, Monsegur had already been assisting the authorities for six
months. Less than three months after the Stratfor files were
compromised and then released by Anonymous and LulzSec, the
FBI
arrested Hammond on March 6 using evidence t
2000
hey were able to
create with the cooperation of Monsegur.”Since literally the day he was arrested, the defendant has
been cooperating with the government proactively,” Assistant
U.S. Attorney James Pastore said at a secret bail hearing after
Monsegur first began assisting law enforcement.Monsegur had last been scheduled to be sentenced in August 2012,
but Judge Preska adjourned
the hearing for another six months then due to the defendant’s
ongoing cooperation with the government. According to the latest
news out of New York, Monsegur is said to be still assisting the
authorities, suggesting that the FBI continues to maintain a
presence inside of Anonymous and the hacktivism community. Now
Monsegur is likely to avoid sentencing until at least August 2013,
at which point he will have been working with the FBI for over two
years.“Do not expect Sabu to be sentenced until after the last
co-defendant or case he made has been convicted and sentenced,”
New York-based human rights attorney Stanley
Cohen — who is not directly affiliated with either hacking case
— opined on Twitter. Jay
Leiderman, another counsel who is not working on this case but
has assisted with legal representative for another accused members
of Anonymous, adds that he doesn’t think Monsegur will be sentenced
“until he either testifies against Hammond or Hammond pleads
guilty.”Judge Preska, who will next weigh in on the Monsegur case in
August, is meanwhile tasked with handling the federal prosecution
of Jeremy
Hammond. If he is convicted of his crimes that were done in
conjunction with the informant’s urging he could be sentenced to
life in prison. When Monsegur is eventually sentenced, he could be
handed a prison stay of 124
years. Until then, though, he is guaranteed another six months
outside of prison on condition that he continues to work with
authorities.Share on Tumblr … Read More
