NEW YORK – The hacker who broke into more than 100 Apple and Google email accounts and stole nude photos of female celebrities in 2014 has been sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison.
In May, 36-year-old Ryan Collins from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to hacking into the email and online accounts of celebrities and stealing their nude photos and videos.
He was charged with illegally accessing hundreds of email accounts, including those belonging to several celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence, Aubrey Plaza, Kate Upton, Gabrielle Union, Kirsten Dunst, Rihanna and Avril Lavigne.
The father-of-two agreed to take a plea deal after violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Federal prosecutors said Collins used a scheme called phishing, in which he was able to get victims to provide information about their accounts in response to emails that appeared to come directly from Apple and Google.
In the scheme, he asked account holders to provide their log-in data, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In some instances, authorities said, he was able to obtain all the files his victims had stored online, including their nude photos and videos.
Prosecutors say there was no evidence that Collins leaked any of the stolen images online or shared any of the information he had obtained.
Identifying more than 600 victims, investigators found that Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts.
His hacking was discovered while federal officials were investigating ‘Celebgate’, which was the widespread online leak of stolen, nude celebrity photos in September 2014.
Collins could have faced up to five years in federal prison, but the judge agreed to the prosecutors’ recommendation of 18 months.
According to his Facebook page Collins is married and has two children. He is originally from Hershey, Pennsylvania, and currently lives in Lancaster.
His LinkedIn profile says he graduated from James Madison University in 2003 with a degree in integrated science and technology.
He works as a creative project manager for the eCommerce marketing company Listrak in Lancaster.
He has previously worked as an art director and webmaster, and as a personal chef.
