Guernsey Press

US man charged with hacking stars’ accounts in ‘celebgate’ scandal

He faces up to five years in prison.

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A man charged with hacking into more than 250 cloud storage accounts of Hollywood stars and ordinary people has agreed to plead guilty.

Federal prosecutors said the charge against 26-year-old George Garofano stems from the investigation into the 2014 “celebgate” scandal in which the private photos of Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and others were made public.

Garofano, from North Branford, Connecticut, agreed to plead guilty to unauthorised access to a protected computer.

Jennifer Lawrence was among the victims ( Ian West/PA)
Jennifer Lawrence was among the victims ( Ian West/PA)

He faces up to five years in prison.

Prosecutors say he sent emails that appeared to be from Apple encouraging victims to reveal iCloud usernames and passwords, or to enter them on a website where he could retrieve them.

Garofano’s lawyer told Hartford Courant his client “is a good person who was taken advantage of” by more sophisticated hackers and is remorseful.

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