Palin Hacker Convicted, She Compares Case to Watergate Ravi Somaiya · 04/30/10 03:02PM A Tennessee jury convicted David Kernell, 20, the kid who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account in 2008, of computer fraud and obstruction of justice. Palin, modest and magnanimous as ever, compared the case to Watergate in a Facebook message.