Christopher Chaney, 35, pled guilty on Monday to hacking into the email accounts of Christina Aguilera, Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson. After hacking those accounts he posted naked photographs online from Scarlett’s personal email account.
Chaney was facing nine counts of criminal hacking in federal court, counts that includes computer and wiretapping charges. Sentencing for the guilty party is now scheduled for July 23.
Chaney was first arrested in October after a yearlong investigation that authorities named “Operation Hackerazzi.”
During the pre-trial prosecutors say Chaney illegally access more than 50 accounts for various people in the entertainment industry.
In December Scarlett Johansson said her nude photos were meant for Ryan Reynolds, her now ex-husband. At the time Scarlett shrugged off the nude photos.
After gaining access to email accounts by examining public data Chaney then set each email account to forward into another email of his choosing, allowing him to keep an eye on the accounts he managed to hack.
When the hackers hard drive was confiscated by criminal law experts they obtained many private celebrity photos and a document that Chaney created in which private celebrity data was stored for later user.
While the hacker would go on to send many private photos to two gossip websites and to another hacker there has never been any evidence that the hacker profited from his attempts.
In realizing that he had been caught it didn’t take long for Christopher Chaney to offer a public apologize to everyone in the entertainment industry his attacks focused on.