14 DAY TRIAL // Three years after making his debut on the world's hacking stage, Romanian hacker Guccifer, also known as Little Fume, is going to the US to face the music after Romania has finally agreed to extradite him, but only for a temporary period of 18 months.
Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice, the country's top court, agreed to a temporary extradition of Marcel Lehel Lazăr, 40, so that he could face legal procedures in the US.
The temporary extradition means that as soon as his case is wrapped up in the US, regardless of his sentence, he'll be taken back to Romania to finish serving his existing sentence.
Guccifer was already serving a four-year prison sentence in Romania
Romanian authorities arrested Guccifer on January 22, 2014, and later sentenced him to four years in prison for hacking the email and social media accounts of various Romanian politicians and celebrities, and also breaking his parole.
Despite the large number of hacked victims, Romanian law enforcement only brought official charges against Guccifer for hacking the email accounts of George Maior (Romanian Secret Service chief) and Corina Cretu (Romanian member of the European Parliament). For each case, the hacker pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence of three years, but the court decided that he should serve just one of them.
Additionally, Guccifer was previously convicted on February 8, 2012, by the District Court of Bucharest, Sector 3 for another hacking-related charge, for which he received a suspended prison sentence of three years.
Guccifer had one year left to serve on that suspended sentence when he was arrested, so that year got added up to the more recent convictions, rounding up to a total of four years of prison time he has to serve in a Romanian jail.
Guccifer will have to face more charges in the US
In the US, the hacker will be facing multiple similar hacking charges after he broke into the accounts of various members of the Bush family, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and numerous celebrities like Nicole Kidman, Leonardo di Caprio, Steve Martin, and many other more. For a complete list of victims, you can check The Smoking Gun website, through which Guccifer was releasing his leaks.
US authorities officially indicted Guccifer in 2014. The hacker is accused of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, unauthorized access to a protected computer, cyberstalking and obstruction of justice.