The fourth and the final person involved in the 2014 iCloud hack has been sentenced to eight months of prison. Connecticut resident George Garofano along with three others were involved in the one of the most notorious hacks involving intimate images of Hollywood A-listers of the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and several others.
Garofano had already pleaded guilty in April for sending out phishing emails to the victims while pretending to from Apple online security team in a bid to obtain log-in details. After obtaining the details, Garofano and his three accomplices, all of whom have already been sentenced to between nine and 18 months in prison, accessed photos and pieces of personal information of the nearly 240 victims which included several Hollywood celebrities.
While the prosecutors argued that Garofano should spend 16 months in prison, the judge noted that the sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release. The prosecution wrote: “Mr Garofano’s offense 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. 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’. In committing this offense, Mr Garofano acted in complete and utter disregard for the impact on his victims’ lives.”
Garofano stated that he had already suffered serious consequences for his actions and has cleaned up his act, which occurred while he was in college. Defense attorney Richard Lynch wrote, “He now stands before the court having matured, accepting responsibility for his actions and having not been in trouble with the law since. There is nothing to suggest that he would ever engage in this or any other criminal conduct in the future.”