Man Responsible for Jennifer Lawrence’s Photo Hacking Gets Jail Time
A 29-year-old Chicago man has been sentenced to jail time for hacking phones that belonged to Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Avril Lavigne and more celebrities in 2014 and posting nude photos and videos he stole online.
Edward Majerczyk has been sentenced to nine months in prison and must pay $5,700 in restitution to compensate one celebrity victim who's sought counseling, according to The Guardian. Majerczyk pleaded guilty to "one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information" in a Los Angeles court last year before his case was moved to Chicago.
Majerczyk's attorney defended him in a court filing by insisting he was "suffering from depression and looked to pornography websites and internet chat rooms in an attempt to fill some of the voids and disappointment he was feeling in his life."
In a November 2014 interview with Vanity Fair, Lawrence chided anyone who cheapened the severity of Majerczyk's act, and said it's imperative that legislation changes to protect privacy in the age of commodified data.
"It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime,” she tells Kashner. “It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside."
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