A California man who was federally indicted last year for buying stolen erotic photographs will likely serve prison time under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors last week.
Hunter Moore, 28, was arrested in January 2014 following an investigation in which federal prosecutors alleged the so-called “revenge porn” kingpin paid an associate to hack into the e-mail accounts of nearly a dozen victims in order to collect sexually explicit photographs of women.
Moore was the owner and operator of a website called IsAnyoneUp.com, which was acquired and shut down by an anti-bullying organization called BullyVille. Prior to the acquisition, prosecutors alleged Moore and another man — identified in court documents as Charles Evens — conspired to steal nude images from nearly a dozen women over the course of several months in late 2011 and early 2012.
According to , Moore paid Evens more than $1,000 for his services.
Under the plea agreement released on Wednesday, Moore will plead guilty to one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the federal anti-hacking statute, as well as one count of identity theft in connection with the scheme. Moore faces a maximum of seven years in prison and fines up to $500,000. Some say prison time is very likely for Moore.
“I’m pleased he’s going to prison,” Charlotte Laws, a mother of one of the unidentified victims, . “I think it gives him and his followers time to grow up and get out of their mysogynistic [sic], childish hating of women and trying to ruin their lives.”
Laws was one of the handful of individuals who prompted federal investigators to look into Moore’s revenge porn website when it was still running, the Times reported.
Moore is hardly a likable character. For years, he was invited onto national television talk shows and local radio programs alike, where he showed very little sympathy for the women whose intimate photos often appeared alongside their full names and other personal information on his website.
“I understand it can hurt your reputation and your job and yadda yadda yadda,” he told a Times reporter in the fall of 2011 — likely around the same time prosecutors say he was committing his crimes.
On its face, Moore’s website didn’t violate any federal laws when he operated it, something that critics argued then was a problem. Prosecutors didn’t charge Moore with operating a website — merely for his actions that led to some of the postings on it.
But his website was not without its ramifications — mainly for others accused of trying to copy it. IsAnyoneUp and other revenge porn sites prompted lawmakers in a handful of states — including California, where Moore lives — to pass anti-revenge porn laws making it a crime to knowingly distribute sexually-explicit images of others without their express permission.
Last December, Noe Iniguez — christened “LA’s douchebag boyfriend” — became the first person sentenced under California’s anti-revenge porn law after he uploaded a nude image of his former girlfriend to her employer’s Facebook profile. According to investigators, Iniguez said his motivation behind the post was to get his girlfriend fired. Instead, the post landed Iniguez a one-year jail sentence.
It is unclear how much prison time — if any — Moore will receive. He is scheduled to make a court appearance later this month.
