Hacker Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Hacking Accounts of US Politicians on Twitter

A man from Britain has been given a five-year prison sentence for his participation in a social media hack that involved taking control of the Twitter accounts of prominent American political and business figures, as well as for cyberstalking and making threats against multiple individuals.

Joseph James O’Connor, 24, pleaded guilty in New York last month to involvement in numerous networks, including the July 2020 Twitter hack that led to the appearances of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and others. promote the Bitcoin system. The guilty plea came after O’Connor, known online as “PlugwalkJoe”, was extradited from Spain on April 26.

“I’m ashamed to be here,” O’Connor told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff at his sentencing hearing in Manhattan on Friday. “I’m sorry to all the victims of my crimes. I’m here because I did stupid and shameful things.”

“I will never break the law again,” O’Connor said. “I want to live a life that matters, not the idiotic, empty, hermit life I was living.”

Rakoff said he took into account O’Connor’s relatively young age and autism in reaching the sentence. O’Connor had asked the court to give him only the 23 months of jail time he had already served before the sentence. He will be credited for that time, the judge said. Prosecutors argued for seven years.

“O’Connor used his advanced technical abilities for nefarious purposes — conducting a sophisticated SIM swap attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency, hacking Twitter, hacking to take over social media accounts and even cyberstalking two victims, including a minor victim. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in his statement at the time of O’Connor’s guilty plea.

O’Connor also pleaded guilty to stealing $794,012.64 from a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company through SIM swapping of some of its executives. He has agreed to forfeit this amount.

He also admitted to “hitting” a 16-year-old girl in June and July 2020, called local police and claimed she was going to shoot people he thought were at her address. O’Connor also sent similar messages to the high school, the restaurant and the sheriff’s department. The following month, he called several members of the victim’s family and threatened to kill them.