The celebrity hacker accused of illegally hacking into celebrities' private accounts to steal nude pictures and videos of female celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, among others, has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges of computer hacking.
Ryan Collins, 36, has pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information.
Collins was charged with infiltrating 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts of female celebrities between November 2012 and September 2014. Authorities could not find evidence to prove that he was responsible for leaking, sharing or uploading the nude pictures online.
Collins is facing a five-year prison sentence for the offence, but prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 18 months in addition to a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in California.
While the victims of the scandal weren't officially revealed, Lawrence, Upton, Ariana Grande and Gabrielle Union were some of the women whose intimate pictures and video clips surfaced online in what came to be known as "Celebgate," or "The Fappening."
Collins gained access to the private accounts and personal data of the celebrities by sending them fraudulent emails to make them look like they were from Apple or Google and used this "phishing" scam to obtain their personal account information.
"By illegally accessing intimate details of his victims' personal lives, Mr. Collins violated their privacy and left many to contend with lasting emotional distress, embarrassment and feelings of insecurity," said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office.
"We continue to see both celebrities and victims from all walks of life suffer the consequences of this crime and strongly encourage users of Internet-connected devices to strengthen passwords and to be skeptical when replying to emails asking for personal information," he added.
Many celebrities condemned the nude photo leak, including Lawrence, who described the invasion of privacy as a "sex crime."
"It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change," JLaw said in a 2014 interview.
