A man who hacked into celebrity accounts and stole X-Rated pictures has been sentenced to 6 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release

Andrew Helton of Astoria, Oregon, pleaded guilty to hacking 363 Apple and Gmail accounts in February.

Hilton ran a phishing scheme that involved him sending emails to potential victims asking them to verify their accounts by clicking on a link; the links in the emails, pretending to be from Apple and Google, then took the victims to a malicious website dressed up as being an official page from each company, whereby the victims were asked to enter their username and password.

Having obtained access to the accounts, Helton then obtained 161 sexually explicit, nude and/or partially nude images of approximately 13 victims, some of whom were celebrities.

Of note Helton was arrested in 2013 before the infamous “Celebgate/ Fappening” scandal of 2014 that saw hundreds of images from celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence making their way online, and authorities do not believe that Helton distributed any of the photos he obtained.

“For more than two years, defendant Andrew Helton targeted, baited, and hooked unsuspecting victims with his phishing e-mails,” Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie S. Christensen wrote in a filing that urged the court to sentence Helton to at least one year in prison. “He targeted strangers, acquaintances, and celebrities alike. He trolled through their private e-mail accounts, accessing the most private of communications. He systematically pilfered nude and intimate images of his victims and stored them in his own computer for personal use.”

Defense

Helton’s attorney argued that he should receive no prison sentence because his phishing scheme was not technologically difficult before Helton told the court that his arrest had forced him to confront mental health issues.

“For the last … five years or so, I’ve been a dead man walking, so to speak … Mental illness took over my life and surrounded everything,” Helton told the court. “I have a better life now than I could have ever imagined.”

In sentencing, U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt said that he recognized that Helton was well educated and has a substantial amount of talent and he hoped the sentence would allow him to move forward.

“I regard this as part of a new beginning,” Kronstadt said.