Palin E-Mail Hacker Starts Prison Sentence

nvkhkhr

Prime VIP
01468i28157300-1.jpg
The man accused of hacking into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account during the 2008 presidential election has started a one-year prison sentence, despite a judge's call that he serve his time in a halfway house.
David Kernell, 23, is now an inmate at Ashland Federal Correctional Institution in Kentucky, according to Federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) records. His expected release date is November 23.
In April, Kernell was convicted on two counts of destroying records and unlawful access to a computer; he was acquitted of wire fraud charges. In November, he was sentenced to a year and a day, though the judge suggested he be remanded to a halfway house rather than federal prison.
Ashland is a low security institution housing male inmates with a satellite camp that houses minimum security inmates. It's located 125 miles east of Lexington, according to the BOP.
During the 2008 presidential election, Kernell hacked into the Yahoo e-mail account of Palin, who was then running as the Republican vice presidential candidate with John McCain. Palin's e-mail address was published in several new stories about her alleged use of a private e-mail for public business. Kernell, a 20-year-old college student at the time - and son of Tennessee Democratic state representative Mike Kernell - took that e-mail address and accessed Palin's account by guessing the answers to her Yahoo secret questions and changing her password.
He then posted photos and documents from the account, as well as Palin's contact list, to online message board 4Chan.
Kernell turned himself into authorities in October 2008 after authorities searched his apartment, and he was indicted soon after. He was initially charged with gaining unlawful access to stored communications and obtaining information from a protected computer via interstate communication – charges that could carry up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In March 2009, a grand jury added wire fraud, identity theft, and obstruction of justice to the list.
Kernell had requested probation for his crime, which his lawyers framed in court filings as "an unplanned episode of misconduct."
After Kernell's conviction, Palin said in a Facebook post that she was "thankful that the jury thoroughly and carefully weighed the evidence and issued a just verdict."
 
Top