On Wednesday, a federal judge in Kentucky approved Deric Lostutter’s motion to plead guilty to two of four counts in a hacking case that has been stretched out over four years. As a result, he could face years in prison.
In July 2016, prosecutors formally accused Lostutter of hacking a Steubenville, Ohio high school football team website, as alleged retribution for shielding teenager rapists. Lostutter was indicted on four counts, including conspiracy and making a false statement to the FBI.
Presumably, this means that counts two and three, which cite the notorious anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, will likely be dismissed as part of a plea deal.
As Ars has reported previously, the case stretches back to 2012. After The New York Times published an account late that year of a horrific rape involving a teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, an online vigilante campaign began. Spearheaded by someone calling himself "KYAnonymous," the campaign targeted local officials whom the vigilantes felt weren't taking the rape investigation seriously because the alleged perpetrators were high school football players.
In December 2012, a website devoted to Steubenville sports (warning: auto-playing sound!) was hacked. The hack displayed a video of a man in a Guy Fawkes mask. The masked man, whom Rolling Stone identified as Lostutter, threatened to release personal information of the implicated Steubenville football players unless they apologized to the rape victim by January 1, 2013.
Two teenage boys ended up being charged in the rape case, and when the case went to trial in March 2013, the two were convicted and sentenced to one to two years in prison. In early June 2013, Lostutter outed himself as "KYAnonymous" and provided a written account of an April 2013 FBI search on his property in Winchester, Kentucky.
Previously, Lostutter denied that he hacked the Stubenville sports site. Neither federal prosecutors nor Lostutter's lawyers immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment.
Lostutter is set to be re-arraigned on November 23, 2016 at 10:30am ET in federal court in Lexington, Kentucky.
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