14 DAY TRIAL // 42-year-old Marcel Lehel Lazar, better known as Guccifer, the hacker that gained unauthorized access to email and social network accounts of high-profile public figures, has been charged in the United States.
The indictment document, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, specifies that Guccifer, who also acted under the aliases of “Guccifer Seven” and “Micul Fum,” is indicted as follows:
- three counts of wire fraud; - three counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer; - one count of aggravated identity theft; - one count of cyberstalking; - one count of obstruction of justice.
The hacker is a taxi driver from Arad, Romania, and he has already been convicted in his own country and is to serve four years in prison.
The charges brought to him in Romania included unauthorized access to email accounts of public figures, politician Corina Cretu and George Maior, the chief of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).
The United States indictment does not reveal the names of the victims, nor his methods to carry out the deeds. However, the document mentions that among the victims were a family member of two former U.S. presidents, a sanitation engineer, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and a journalist and a former presidential advisor.
Through methods unrevealed to the public, the document states that Guccifer obtained access to AOL, Facebook, Yahoo! and Gmail accounts.
His actions included stealing content such as confidential information and property such as emails, images, medical information, phone numbers, home addresses or contact names. In some cases, he would change the original password to the accessed account.
Some of the content stolen by the hacker has been leaked to media organizations, who published portions of the information in August, 2013.
Among the alleged victims of the hacker there is former Secretary of State Colin Powell along with actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman and Steve Martin.
The U.S. Department of Justice also made available a press release informing of the allegations and that the case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Peter V. Roman of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Dickey of the Eastern District of Virginia.
However, there is no information on when the trial will start and if Marcel Lehel Lazar is to be extradited after serving his sentence in Romania.