Hacker George Garofano has been jailed for eight months for his involvement in stealing nude photographs of Jennifer Lawrence.
Garofano, 26, had been accused of hacking into the private iCloud accounts of over 200 people, including celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton, back in 2014.
Pleading guilty in April, he was one of four men arrested for the scandal, with authorities saying that the group had used a phishing scheme that sent emails pretending to be from Apple security accounts, asking for usernames and passwords.
The three other hackers have already been sentenced to terms between nine months and 18 months in prison, but a US federal judge in Bridgeport, Connecticut, ordered Garofano to serve an eight-monthprison term, followed by three years of supervised release for his breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
According to the Guardian, in a sentencing memo to the court, the prosecution wrote: “Mr Garofano’s offence was a serious one. He illegally hacked into his victims’ online accounts, invaded their privacy and stole their personal information, including private and intimate photos.
“He did not engage in this conduct on just one occasion. He engaged in this conduct 240 times over the course of 18 months.
“Not only did Mr Garofano keep for himself the photographs he stole, he disseminated them to other individuals. He may have also sold them to others to earn ‘extra income’.”
“Mr Garofano acted in complete and utter disregard for the impact on his victims’ lives.”
Lawrence has previously spoken out about the effects that the leaked nude photos had on her mental health, telling the Mirror earlier this year: “There was a long period when I didn’t want to be seen sexually and I didn’t want anybody to see my flesh. There were things that made me uncomfortable.
“I am in the single mode where I am like, ‘Cool, I can do whatever I wantand I can be alone and watch terrible TV.’
“And then, of course, in a few months I will be devastatingly lonely and feel like I’m on some long waiting list. But I am not there yet.”
She added that, while many assume Hollywood lives involve non-stop parties, hers is actually very subdued – referring to her social life as ‘very boring’.
“I sit around outside my house with my friends and drink wine, and that hasn’t really changed. I don’t like to go out,” she explained.
