The hacker behind the infamous “celebgate/fappening” hacking scandal in 2014 that resulted in erotic images of celebrities appearing online has been sentenced to nine months in prison.

Edward Majerczyk, 28, of Chicago, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized access to a private account to obtain information as part of a plea deal agreed to in July 2016. Majerczyk was accused of illegally accessing more than 300 Apple Inc. iCloud and Google Inc. Gmail accounts using a phishing scheme that involved him pretending to be from Google and Apple to obtain login details from those targeted.

Having obtained the account details, Majerczyk accessed iCloud and Gmail accounts and downloaded personal information, including nude images and images of the targets engaged in sex acts from celebrities including Kirsten Dunst, Aubrey Plaza, Rihanna, Avril Lavigne, Kaley Cuoco and Jennifer Lawrence.

Majerczyk’s lawyer told the court that his client’s actions were the result of his suffering depression at the time the images were obtained. “Mr. Majerczyk was suffering from depression and looked to pornography websites and Internet chat rooms in an attempt to fill some of the voids and disappointment he was feeling in his life,” the lawyer wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Majerczyk was not alone in hacking celebrity accounts. Pennsylvania man Ryan Collins pleaded guilty to hacking at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts of celebrities in March last year before being sentenced to 18 months in prison. Another accused was Andrew Helton, who pleaded guilty in February to hacking 363 Apple and Gmail accounts, including those belonging to celebrities, and obtaining X-Rated pictures from a number of those accounts. Helton received a six-month sentence in July.

Notably, in all three cases no evidence was found of the accused having uploaded the photographs to the Internet, meaning that an investigation into who ultimately published the images may be ongoing.

Image: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons/CC 2.0