Mar 24, 2011 08:45 GMT  ·  By

George Hotz, the hacker who managed to break the security systems on the PlayStation 3, has reportedly fled to South America, of all places, according to a legal document sent by Sony to the court where his trial is taking place.

[admark=1]Sony has been cracking down on all of the hackers involved in hacking its PlayStation 3 home console, and George Hotz (aka GeoHot) is its main target because he was the first to release a custom firmware version that bypassed all of the security measures set in place by the Japanese company.

As such, Sony has filed a lawsuit against him, which has already been going on for quite some time.

Now though, things are taking a turn for the bizarre, with Sony claiming that Hotz has fled to South America in order to escape the long arm of the law.

New court documents sent by Sony to magistrates and uncovered by VGHQ, say that Hotz has deliberately taken his computer hard drives, which contained data linking him to the hacking scandal, and fled to South America.

"Most seriously, after Magistrate Judge Spero ordered an inspection of Hotz's devices and ordered Hotz to appear at a deposition in California, SCEA learned that Hotz had deliberately removed integral components of his impounded hard drives prior to delivering them to a third party neutral and that Hotz is now in South America, an excuse for why he will not immediately provide the components of his hard drives as requested by the neutral. Hotz's attempts to dodge this Court's authority raise very serious questions."

As you can imagine, Hotz's attorney, Stewart Kellar, was quick to respond to the allegations, saying that Hotz didn't hide his hard drives and isn't fleeing from justice like villains from 1980s action movies.

"As for any question as to whether Mr. Hotz has used donation money to take a trip to South America, that's pretty silly. Litigating against a massive company like Sony, who is represented by five attorneys, is very costly for a 21-year-old," Kellar told IGN. "The donation money George has received is being used exclusively for his legal defense. If there are any funds left after the lawsuit, George is planning to donate the money to the [Electronic Frontier Foundation]."

Even if Hotz's lawyer denies the claims, he has been silent for quite a while, especially after magistrates allowed Sony to comb through the data of his website and find the IP addresses of anyone who downloaded his PS3 hacks, as well as go through his PayPal account.

Who knows, maybe Hotz is actually enjoying South America while looking over his shoulder to make sure Sony's goons aren't following him.