A former college student convicted of breaking into Sarah Palin’s e-mail account during the 2008 presidential elections has been sentenced to a year and one day.
According to the Associated Press, Federal Judge Thomas W. Phillips recommended that David Kernell serve his time in a halfway house, rather than prison.
Phillips also proposed that Kernell receive mental health treatment during his incarceration, as he has suffered from bouts of depression since age 11.
For his part, Kernell apologized to Sarah Palin, saying that the incident would undoubtedly affect for him the rest of his life.
However, an official statement on Palin’s Facebook page compared the case to the infamous 1972 Watergate scandal which eventually led to Richard Nixon’s untimely resignation.
“As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates’ private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election.”
