Three More Criminal Charges For Governor Palin's Hacker
As Originally Posted at PC Mag
David Kernell is not having a good week.
The college student who is accused of hacking into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is now facing three additional charges.
Kernell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee and the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, has already been charged with gaining unlawful access to stored communications and obtaining information from a protected computer via interstate communication – charges that could carry up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
A grand jury has now added wire fraud, identity theft, and obstruction of justice to the list, according to a March 6 filing. In addition, the count alleging unlawful access to a computer "has been significantly changed," though the filing did not go into detail.
Kernell's legal team intends to file a motion to dismiss the additional charges. As a result, the trial date has been pushed from May 19 until late September or early October.
Kernell turned himself into authorities on Oct. 8. He is accused of hacking into Palin's "gov.palin@yahoo.com" e-mail account on Sept. 16 by successfully navigating Yahoo's password recovery system.
