The FBI Just Busted the King of Revenge Porn
After building an entire career atop posting stolen naked images of women across the country, internet villain Hunter Moore and alleged hacker partner Charlie Evans are in FBI custody.
The pair, who'd created multiple online porn properties over the years, was arrested this morning after an investigation into allegations that they'd illegally pried into private web accounts for fun and profit:
Hunter Moore, 27, of Woodland, who operated isanyoneup.com, and Charles Evens, 25, of Studio City, were arrested without incident by special agents with the FBI.
Both men are expected to make initial court appearances this afternoon – Moore in federal court in Sacramento, and Evens in United States District Court in Los Angeles.
Moore and Evens are charged in a 15-count indictment unsealed after they were arrested this morning. The indictment charges both men with conspiracy, seven counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and seven counts of aggravated identity theft.
Emphasis added. Although plenty of fawning fans send Moore naked selfies, the FBI says his empire was founded through outright hacking:
The pictures were submitted without the victim's permission for purposes of revenge. However, to obtain more photos to populate the site, Moore allegedly instructed Evens to gain unauthorized access to – in other words, to hack into – victims' e-mail accounts. Moore sent payments to Evens in exchange for nude photos obtained unlawfully from the victims' accounts. Moore then posted the illegally obtained photos on his website, without the victims' consent. The indictment alleges that Evens hacked into email accounts belonging to hundreds of victims.
Emphasis added. When Moore's victims complained, those messages (and personal information) was made public, creating a perpetual sadism machine that drew huge audiences online—impunity was just as much Moore's calling card as naked people.
When you combine this serious indictment (which can be read in full below) with his self-confessed lifestyle of aggressively, gleefully violating personal privacy rights and doing a bunch of blow, this will be no easy case for the defense.
