Prominent Hacker Who Became FBI Informant Is Released
The hacker who cofounded the shadowy LulzSec group, but who then helped the U.S. government disrupt at least 300 cyberattacks while working as an FBI informant, is now a free man.
A Manhattan federal district court judge granted Hector Xavier Monsegur, better known by his hacker moniker “Sabu,” a sentence of time served and one year of supervised release on Tuesday. Monsegur, who had served seven months in 2012 before being released on bail, finally appeared in court after prosecutors asked his sentencing to be postponed seven times.
The U.S. government asked Judge Loretta Preska for leniency in a court filing on Friday, given Monsegur’s “extraordinarily valuable and productive” work with the FBI. Monsegur had faced up to 124 years in prison on 12 counts, and sentencing guidelines called for up to 26 years.
In the document, federal prosecutors praised Monsegur for helping to disrupt at least 300 cyberattacks on various targets including the U.S. military, Congress, the federal courts, NASA and several private companies.
Since his arrest on June 7, 2011, Monsegur has helped the FBI track down and eventually imprison several hackers who were part of LulzSec, the group he cofounded as an offshoot of Anonymous. Last year, one of those hackers, Anonymous member Jeremy Hammond, pleaded guilty to hacking charges and received a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the prosecutors, Monsegur’s lawyer and Preska praised Monsegur’s work with the FBI, repeatedly calling it “truly extraordinary.”
“For months he worked around the clock,” said Monsegur’s lawyer Peggy Cross-Goldenberg, explaining that some of the hackers he worked with lived in other parts of the world, which forced Monsegur to be online at all times. “He gave everything he had,” she said.
Preska said that the nature of Monsegur’s work for the FBI, “doing good and not evil,” was the main factor behind her decision to accept the government’s plea for a lenient sentence and let him walk free.
Before Preska’s ruling, Monsegur had a chance to speak publicly for the first time in three years, saying he has done a lot of “thinking and soul-searching” since he was arrested.
“I’m not the same person you saw here three years ago,” Monsegur, who was wearing glasses and an oversized black shirt, said.
After the ruling, Preska addressed Monsegur directly. She told him that what he did in the past was “not so good,” but she saluted him for his collaboration with the FBI and encouraged him to keep using his computer skills for good.
After the hearing concluded, reporters caught Monsegur walking away from the court in Lower Manhattan, now a free man.
