LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A Studio City man was sentenced to two years in federal prison for hacking into women’s email accounts to steal nude photos that were later posted on a now-defunct “revenge porn” website.
Charles “Gary Jones” Evens, 26, was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release following his 25-month prison term and pay a $2,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The sentencing hearing on Monday, Nov. 16, in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee was closed to the public.
Evens, who was ordered to surrender Jan. 29 to begin serving his prison term, pleaded guilty in July to charges of computer hacking and identity theft for obtaining nude photos that were posted on the now-inoperative IsAnyoneUp.com site.
The operator of the site, Hunter Moore, 29, of Woodland, near Sacramento, pleaded guilty to the same charges as Evens and is expected to be sentenced next week.
The website featured nude and sexually explicit photos that had been submitted without permission of the people depicted in the images.
Moore paid Evens upwards of $200 a week to break into women’s email accounts and steal nude photos of them, which were posted on the site, federal prosecutors said.
During the closed hearing, a woman identified as one of the victims in the case told the judge of the personal chaos the hacking caused, according to the woman’s mother, who provided City News Service with a copy of her daughter’s statement.
The victim said she had never met Evens before he hacked into her Google account more than three years ago and stole several partially unclothed “selfies” that were meant for her eyes only.
“These photos had never been seen nor sent to anyone,” the woman said in her statement. “I emailed them to myself to eventually save on my computer. They were in a private folder called ‘my pics’ along with a plethora of other photos of my dogs, little brothers and such.”
She said she found out that her photos had been posted online while at her waitressing job when a friend called and told her to meet her outside.
“She proceeded to tell me that I had a topless photo on the Internet along with my full name, Twitter account link and current city,” the woman said in her statement. “A total shock was taking over me … I felt exposed, ashamed and broke into tears. I didn’t know what else to do other than call my mom. I made her promise not to tell anyone, including my father and stepfather.
“I was hoping no one would see it, but within a day, a mass text with my photo had been sent to everyone at my restaurant,” the woman said. “The assistant manager said she could get me fired over it, and I lost a role in a film, not to mention the tens of thousands of strangers who saw, commented on or even possibly saved the photo.”
When she got home that night, “a bunch of random guys” had added her on Facebook and were “following me on social media,” she told the court.
“I received vile, sexual messages and rude comments,” the woman said.
“One guy even told me he saved the photo, which mortified me. The porn star Ron Jeremy even contacted me to ‘talk business.’ This disgusted me immensely.”
Eventually, all of her friends and family found out, she said.
“I felt hurt that someone would go to such an extent to expose someone in such a nasty way,” she wrote. “I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. During most of the time period when my photo was on the website, I was in bed curled into a ball feeling unable to act or move. … At home, I was scared for my life. There was even a stalker parked in front of our house on two evenings.
“Outside of the home, I had people who I didn’t even know mention that they knew about the photo,” she wrote. “I still get people saying this, and I have never really known how to respond. It’s embarrassing and heartbreaking that this is something I’ve been subjected to in my life. I will have to keep a Google alert on my name for the rest of my life in order to make sure that the photo does not reappear. What Charlie Evens did to me will affect me for the rest of my life.”
Charlotte Laws, the victim’s mother, said outside court that she was “a little disappointed” by Evens’ two-year sentence.
“I would’ve liked to see him get more time,” she said. “The only comfort I have is he’ll be over 30 when he gets through with the sentence and will have matured a bit, I hope.”
Evens pleaded guilty in San Francisco Superior Court in June to a charge of disrupting the computer access of a separate victim whose email he hacked.
That case was prosecuted by the lawyers from the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who alleged that Evens coordinated the hacking of more than 300 email accounts.
The complaint filed by Harris’ office accused Evens of 11 counts of obtaining unauthorized access to 11 persons’ Gmail accounts and altering data in those accounts.
Harris’ office said that according to a plea agreement, Evens’ three-year state sentence in the San Francisco case will be served concurrently with Monday’s two-year federal term.