A man who deliberately hacked into Jennifer Lawrence’s private iCloud and leaked intimate pictures of her naked body has been jailed for his part in the 2014 scandal.
George Garofano, 26, has been handed an eight-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release for breaking into 240 people’s Apple accounts, including J-Law and other Hollywood stars like Kate Upton, Amber Heard, Gabrielle Union and Kirsten Dunst.
Garofano, at the time a college student, pleaded guilty in April 2018 to hacking into the iCloud accounts by sending phising emails to his victims while posing as an Apple security expert.
When the unsuspecting victims handed over their usernames and passwords, Garofano broke into their accounts and took what he wanted.
The court heard how he had stolen the intimate images to trade with other hackers and may have sold some to supplement his income.
Thousands of naked images and sex tapes flooded the internet after the widescale hacking, and many were circulated on social media and sites like 4Chan in what was dubbed ‘The Fappening’ – a misogynistic term referencing the nudity aspect of the pictures.
Garofano’s legal team argued he had "cleaned up his act" in the four years since and asked for a more lenient prison sentence of just five months, claiming he had "already suffered" serious consequences of his actions.
But prosecutors told the court: "Mr Garofano’s offence was a serious one. He illegally hacked into his victims’ online accounts, invaded their privacy, and stole their personal information, including private and intimate photos.
"He did not engage in this conduct on just one occasion. He engaged in this conduct 240 times over the course of 18 months. Not only did Mr Garofano keep for himself the photographs he stole, he disseminated them to other individuals. He may have also sold them to others to earn ‘extra income’.
"In committing this offence, Mr Garofano acted in complete and utter disregard for the impact on his victims’ lives," they added.
Three other hackers have also been jailed for their part in the iCloud scandal – Emilio Herrera, Ryan Collins and Edward Majerczyk – with prison terms ranging between nine and 18 months.
In the wake of the leak, Jennifer emotionally revealed she felt like she’d been "gang-banged".
"When the hacking thing happened, it was so unbelievably violating that you can’t even put it into words," she told Hollywood Reporter.
"I feel like I got gang-banged by the f**king planet — like, there’s not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me. You can just be at a barbecue and somebody can just pull them up on their phone."
Her nude pictures had been shared with then-boyfriend Nicolas Hoult before they were stolen from her iCloud – something she said last year she was "still processing".
"I think, like, a year and a half ago, somebody said something to me about how I was ‘a good role model for girls’, and I had to go into the bathroom and sob because I felt like an imposter," she said.
"I felt like, ‘I can’t believe somebody still feels that way after what happened.’ It’s so many different things to process when you’ve been violated like that."
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