Clinton Hacker “Guccifer” Sentenced to 52 Months in Prison

Romanian hacker Guccifer who was the first to expose the very existence of a private email server belonging to Hillary Clinton during her days as the secretary of state, has now been sentenced to 52 months in prison, a Virginia federal court ruled today.

Marcel Lazar, a 44-year-old former taxi driver had previously plead guilty in May to several charges including aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access to a protected computer. The Romanian national was extradited from his country to the United States and had said in interviews that he breached Clinton’s private server at her New York home.

Lazar notably hacked into the email accounts of over 100 United States citizens between 2012 and 2014, according to his plea agreement.

His victims included prominent politicians such as former secretary of state Colin Powell, an immediate family member of former Presidents George Bush and George Bush Sr., among others. In many instances, Lazar publicly leaked his victims’ private email correspondence, most notably that of Hillary Clinton’s aide Sidney Blumenthal. Other private details that were leaked included medical and financial information as well as personal photographs, according to facts filed from his plea agreement.

In a press release today, the US Justice Department stated:

Marcel Lehel Lazar, 44, of Arad, Romania, a hacker who used the online moniker “Guccifer,” was sentenced today to 52 months in prison for unauthorized access to a protected computer and aggravated identity theft.

It needs to be said that Lazar isn’t an expert hacker, nor has he had any training prior to his exploits. He has even admitted to having no programming skills, in previous interviews. In a 2015 interview, Lazard stated that he gained access to Colin Powell’s AOL account by simply guessing his password.

Meanwhile, a namesake hacker going by the moniker “Guccifer 2.0” has surfaced recently claiming to be a Romanian hacker who claimed responsibility for a spate of recent high-profile data breaches that targeted the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

However, stateside intelligence officials believe that the namesake moniker inspired by Lazar is simply a front for Russian state-sponsored intelligence services who are targeting the United States in the lead-up to this year’s presidential elections.

Image credit: Pixabay.