Judge sentences ‘revenge porn’ hacker to 2 years in federal prison

A man who admitted to stealing nude photos from women’s email accounts and selling the images for publication on a website was sentenced Monday to more than two years in federal prison.

In addition to the 25-month prison term, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered Charles Evens to pay a $2,000 fine and perform 20 hours of community service, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. He faced a statutory minimum of two years and a maximum of seven years in federal prison.

Evens, 26, pleaded guilty in July to charges of identity theft and computer hacking, prosecutors said.

The Studio City resident confessed to breaking into the email accounts of hundreds of women, obtaining nude photos and selling the images to another man, Hunter Moore, federal prosecutors said.

Moore, 29, operated a revenge porn website, Is Anyone Up?, where he posted the sexually graphic images without securing the women’s permission, prosecutors said.

Both men dealt in what is often referred to as revenge porn, in which naked or sexually graphic photos are passed along by those wishing to shame former spouses or lovers.

In an interview with a Times reporter, Moore brushed off fears that photos on his website may cause harm or embarrassment.

“I understand it can hurt your reputation and your job and yadda yadda yadda,” Moore said of those who request to have photos removed.

The scheme began in 2011, when Moore emailed Evens that he wanted as many nude pictures as possible, according to a 15-count indictment handed down by a grand jury in October 2013.

Evens complied, hacking into Google and Yahoo email accounts in exchange for cash, prosecutors said.

The identities of the victims were anonymous in court filings, but in one email, Moore asked Evens to send nude images of “6 guys and 6 girls” in exchange for $250, according to the charging documents.

The investigation into the duo was triggered by Charlotte Laws, the mother of one of Moore’s alleged victims who came forward to authorities after she discovered that her daughter’s photos were posted on the site. Moore and Evens were arrested in January 2014.

In February, Moore, a resident of Woodland, Calif., pleaded guilty to federal charges of identity theft and computer hacking. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 30.

A 2013 state law made publishing such compromising photos a misdemeanor, and last year, Los Angeles prosecutors reached their first conviction under the law.

In September, Gov. Jerry Brown added to the state’s revenge porn laws and signed SB 676, which allows prosecutors to seek the forfeiture of the unauthorized images as well as the storage device holding the illicit photos.

And last month, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris launched a state website to help victims of revenge porn get the unauthorized images eliminated from websites.

For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno