US federal prosecutors want Christopher Chaney to serve 71 months in prison and pay $150,000 in compensation for stealing naked images from Christina Aguilera, Renee Olstead and Scarlett Johansson.
The 35-year-old Chaney recently pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles federal court to nine counts of computer hacking, acknowledging that he effectively compromised at least 50 email accounts over a period of two years.
According to legal documents obtained by the LA Times, Chaney took naked images of Aguilera from her stylist’s email account, Olstead’s from her email stream and Johansson’s from emails she sent to her then husband Ryan Reynolds.
He subsequently forwarded the pictures to another hacker and two celebrity websites which publicly posted them online.
Prosecutors have asked a judge to order Chaney to compensate his victims, including paying $7,500 to Christina Aguilera; $66,179.46 to Scarlett Johansson; $76,767.35 to Renee Olstead and $10,374.59 to Aftra Health Fund.
Assistant US Attys. Lisa Feldman and Wesley Hsu explained that Chaney refused to halt his obsessive hacking activities even after being caught.
“Indeed, it was apparently such a rush that he continued to do it after the FBI had come and searched his home and seized his computer,” Feldman wrote. ”At least once, on an occasion after defendant’s residence had already been searched by the FBI, the recipient of the email, a secondary victim, complied.”
Feldman also noted one of Chaney’s victims “was underage for part of the 11 years that defendant was victimizing her,” while emphasizing that Chaney cared little about the damage he incurred. ”I don’t care if you share the pictures I’ve sent you… As long as you never mention where you got them,” he told a fellow hacker.
