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Ex-Lulzsec-Head Sabu Rewarded Six-Month Sentencing Delay 131

Posted by samzenpus from the naming-names dept.
hypnosec writes "Ex-Lulzsec-head and hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur a.k.a. Sabu has managed to get his court case delayed by six months – thanks to his cooperation with the US Federal authorities in getting other Lulzsec members behind bars. This news came to light after a court document appeared online, which was filed by the US Government as a request to the US district Attorney. The US Gov put forward an adjournment request "in light of the defendant's ongoing cooperation with the Government." The request has been accepted and now the case has been adjourned till 22 February, 2013."
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Ex-Lulzsec-Head Sabu Rewarded Six-Month Sentencing Delay More

Ex-Lulzsec-Head Sabu Rewarded Six-Month Sentencing Delay

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  • Just keep doing like you do. Us older nerds watched this TV show you might have read on your historical wiki pages: Star Trek. Not to be confused with the empty visceral current Hollywood movie incarnation.

    In the TV show, they had this alien race called the Borg:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek) [wikipedia.org]

    It was a notable work of fiction because of their social organization. Their ships were perfect cubes. You could beam onto them with a landing party, and they wouldn't care. You could kill, abduct, or otherwise maim a Borg crew member, they wouldn't care. None of these actions represented a threat. They are basically the fictional representation of the social order of siafu:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorylus [wikipedia.org]

    Or, of course, any social insect.

    And of course:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) [wikipedia.org]

    "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

    Do not change. Do not be discouraged. Do not give in. Adhere more exactingly to the social organization trait of social insects and the Borg.

    Resistance is futile.

    • Re:Dear Anonymous, etc.: (Score:5, Informative)

      by Robert Zenz ( 1680268 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @07:02AM (#41107159) Homepage

      You could kill, abduct, or otherwise maim a Borg crew member, they wouldn't care.

      That's not completely correct. The Borg care if you engage against them, because then you've become a threat. As long as you're not a threat or "interesting" target, they don't care. While they don't value the life of individual drones, they care very well if you start killing them.

      • Correct. True of social insects too. Army ants or killer bees will ignore you unless you get too close or hurt one of them. The resulting alarm pheromones will lead the colony to attack en masse.

        My whole point was that the Sabu situation shouldn't discourage them or take up too much of their concern. Shrug it off and move on. Like a wasp colony or a Borg collective. The perfect expression of the social organization of Anonymous.

      • You've got it all wrong. The Borg react if it's dramatically expedient for them to do so.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Raenex ( 947668 )

      Adhere more exactingly to the social organization trait of social insects and the Borg.

      Is this an advertisement for Anonymous or against it? Serious question.

  • What a terrible deal. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Does he even have an attorney?

  • he has to face the same justice he would have had 6 months ago, before he ratted on all his mates?

    unless he is going to get a better deal, I'd just prefer to get it done and over with, 6 month delay to me sounds like he's delaying the inevitable, if thats the case, why bother, just goto jail......

    however, if the sentence was lighter because of his help, then yeah, I'd see some benefit in that, otherwise....no way!

    • Re:and then in 6 months?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by djsmiley ( 752149 ) <djsmiley2k@gmail.com> on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:01AM (#41106927) Homepage Journal

      If they wanted to take him down, he'd disappear.

      6 months doing _what_ is the question you need to ask. He already knows the kind of social influence he needs to rise to the "top" of headless organizations such as anon. And anon has the lovely thing that no one needs to ask who you are. Anyone asking would be viewed with suspicion....

      Cut off one head and many shall spawn in its place? What happens when that head is under the control of the feds I wonder?

      • Re:and then in 6 months?? (Score:5, Funny)

        by cowboy76Spain ( 815442 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:10AM (#41106971)

        Following in your line...

        I bet the six months things is just an excuse for the REAL plan. Currently, a "Man in black" is having surgery to get his face changed to that of Monsegur. The six months are needed for healing/removing the scars, and for tattooing the prison plans in his penis.

        After the six months, and just after the entry in jail, that agent will protagonize an staged prison break with several "princes of the contraculture" that are currently in jail. Once free, he will use his new connections to reach to the alien leadership that is the real mastermind of all these movements (from Anonymous to Al-Qaeda, without forgetting PETA) and he will call in the black helicopters before the alien spaceships arrive.

        Is that complicated enough for you, dear?

    • TFA says that he is probably going to spend his life in prison (up to 124 years).

      So (provided that he is currently not jailed), the sentencing is improved not by release date but by entry date. If that guy was to die (or released due to age) in (say) 30 years, entering prison today means a served time of 30 years. Entering in six months would mean a served time of 29 years and six months.

      Who did this guy kill?

      • Re:and then in 6 months?? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by reub2000 ( 705806 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:36AM (#41107071)

        124 years is the maximum amount of time for the charges that he's plead guilty to. I assume the plea bargain he agreed to stipulates the exact prison sentence that he is going to receive.

        Also 124 years jail time just for hacking? Who are the hacks that wrote these laws that allow a person to be put away for the rest of their lives just for hacking?

        • Re:and then in 6 months?? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @07:10AM (#41107191) Homepage

          Actually Hector Xavier Monsegur got involved in worse crimes than that. Hector as an adult stupid enough searched for and groomed minors to commit crimes on the internet on Hector's behalf, crimes that Hector researched, planned, provided the tools and led. The sickest part of that is under the control and direction of the FBI, he continued to score the internet for minors, to entice to criminal activity, so that a bunch of Fucking Bloody Idiots could indulge in some hair brained self promotion.

          Right wing control freaks all wrapped up in a illusionary scheme to pursue an organisation they had branded as a yet another ohhh ahhh terrorist organisation (the defining rule being they are a group not driven by greed and are opposed to government corruption) and one they felt could be used to stimulate laws to clamp down on free speech activities on the internet.

          The ones who really should be indicted are the agents in charged who led the continued criminal activities of Lulz sec and who actively incited minors to commit crimes on the internet, so those minors could be prosecuted for crimes, controlled and led by the FBI.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            When you have a for profit prison system. Sometimes you have to make new criminals. Or entire generations of them.

            It's just good business.

        • The same hacks that passed obamacare because they're sucking corporate dong. And who also tried to pass SOPA, PIPA, ACTA...

          Do I need to go on about how corrupt our government is that it's the lapdog of the elite?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Lashat ( 1041424 )

          also look up "concurrently" and "consecutively"

        • I assume the plea bargain he agreed to stipulates the exact prison sentence that he is going to receive.

          This is actually not legally possible. Sentencing decisions are solely up to the judge. In fact, when a defendant pleads guilty, a judge asks the defendant whether he was promised any particular sentence by the prosecutors to make sure he says "no." If the answer is "yes" the sentence can be invalidated.

          • Source? The Judge is basically a puppet of the prosecution. If the prosecution says that there will be a 6 month delay in sentencing, then there will be a six month delay in sentencing. If the prosecution tells the judge that he deserves life in prison, then he gets life in prison. If the prosecution says the deserves 2 years in prison, then he gets 2 years in prison.

            • Source? How about IAAL and I deal closely with federal judges daily. If you don't believe me, walk own to your nearest federal courthouse and watch a plea. They're open to the public.

              • So then why would he sign the plea deal knowing that he could spend the rest of his life in prison?

                • Because cooperation with the government is a factor a judge may consider (and, practically speaking, will always consider) in reaching a sentence.

                  Also bear in mind that the 124 years is only a theoretical maximum. It is virtually certain that it will be much less than that. The 124 years assumes that the sentences for each charge run sequentially. This is possible, but they almost always are actually ordered to run concurrently, making it much less. And even then, most judges sentence nearer to the bottom o

        • The thing with a lot of these computer crimes is they are actually many seperate crimes rather than a single crime.

          AIUI when someone is convicted of multiple crimes at the same time it's at the judges discretion whether those sentances run consecutively or concurrently. Usually they run concurrently but the possibility that they could run consecutively is what leads to such high theoretical maximums.

    • Re:and then in 6 months?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sumdumass ( 711423 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:22AM (#41107021) Journal

      Around election time is one of the worst times to go on trial or get arrested. Too many "see, I'm tough on crime" politicians exist. Waiting 6 months is likely going to net him more favorable terms and perhaps a more "fair" trial as behind the scenes activity will be less.

      Even the deals will be better because politicians won't need to pressure judges to be strict so they can gain favor with the voters.

      • that makes sense actually, thanks!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hatta ( 162192 )

        Too many "see, I'm tough on crime" politicians exist

        I'm still waiting for a single politician from either major party to claim to be tough on securities fraud.

      • This is almost certainly not the case at the federal level. Sentencing decisions are made by judges, not prosecutors, and judges really don't seem to care about election cycles. (They themselves are not up for reelection, after all.) And this phenomenon you posit of politicians pressuring judges does not exist, I can assure you. (IAAL, and I work closely with federal judges.)

        Keep in mind that this is true at the federal level, but perhaps not true at the state level where judges are sometimes elected.

        • On the federal level, it might not be as transparent, but it still happens Judges get appointed from lower levels to higher levels by political appointment and the consent of the senate. There is no way for them to progress otherwise except through the hierarchy of the same seat in circuits that have multiple judgeship. If a circuit judge want to sit on the appeals court, or even the supreme court, he will have to entertain whatever fancies the politicians in power or most likely to be in power at the time

          • And you think anyone cares that much about this one guy's sentence? I assure you, on the basis of my quite direct personal experience, at least in this case (and in every other case I've been involved in) there is no such pressure.

            • It's not so much that anyone cares, it's that someone could care. You see, there is a guy claiming he is a lawyer and posting on slashdot about "quite direct personal experience, at least in this case" which tells me that someone somewhat cares and others might end up caring as well.

              It may or may not be the case in this specific situation/case. As a rule though, the worst time to be arrested or in a criminal trial is near a major election because of the propensity for it to happen.

              • Ah, well that was a bit of clumsy and quite un-lawyerly writing on my part: I have direct personal experience with the ways judges handle cases like this, but not this particular case. Well played, though.

                • I hope you didn't take that as me accusing you of anything. Rather I was trying to show how the impression can be planted inside someone's mind. Even if it isn't real at a federal level (I know it is at a state level), perception is likely why we see something like this with no other readily explainable reasons.

                  I would certainly want my trial rescheduled to after an election just out of a sense of how fair the trial and sentencing might be even if it isn't grounded in reality.

    • The six months is for prosecuting the other guys that he rolled on. His deal is contingent on him cooperating fully with the authorities, which means actually taking the stand against them. I'm betting that the six month delay is to let him take the stand against the other guys, and to let the prosecutors rate his performance, before they figure out this guy's punishment.

    • Well, the prosecutors can't actually control his sentence. That is exclusively up to the judge. But a judge will certainly take the degree of cooperation into account (and the recommendation of the government) so if he has more cooperating to do, best to do it before the sentencing decision is made, no? (Especially if you're already out on bond.)

  • "ongoing cooperation" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24, 2012 @05:59AM (#41106913)

    No honor among script kiddies, eh?

    • It's easy for someone to feel tough on the internet. Even a script kiddie - and given Lulzsec's record, they must have had at least a couple of people of real skill to pull it off - becomes powerful there. They can take down small websites on a whim, hack emails with a little effort, impersonate, cause chaos, and all seemingly untraceable. They may read of arrests, but never expect it to happen to them. They don't act tough: They really do feel like masters of their domain. And they are. You can't beat the

    • Not many can stand to having their balls squeezed to near bursting by the powers that REALLY be.

  • Why is this desirable? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:16AM (#41106997)

    Maybe I just do not understand what is going on here, but a delay looks to me like making things _worse_, not better. (You have this hanging over your head for a longer time...) Why would anybody want that? Or is this a case of a common human fallacy, namely if it is more distant, it looks less bad?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      Because he's probably been told the longer he cooperates, the more lenient sentence he'll get.

      Whether that ends up being true in the end remains to be seen, they may just fuck him anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Hmm. Makes some sense.

        Not that I would mind if they screw him over. Lulzsec is scum, they have zero "freedom fighter" in them. They are just sadistic vandals that get off on the power trip and not care whom they harm. For example, they do not mind attacking individuals that have no way of defending themselves. The often-heard comparison to Wikileaks is invalid and just underscores how clueless some people are.

        In addition, Lulzsec was fairly incompetent with regard to hacking. They just managed to convince t

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Lulzsec is scum, they have zero "freedom fighter" in them.

          They are not scum they are mostly just kids. The fact the FBI is after them suggests to me its our Government and Law enforcement that is mostly populated by SCUM. Lets face it on the whole the harm done by LulzSec is probably less than what the other kids are doing spray painting their gang signs on the neighbors fence etc.

          There is virtual zero potential for someone to get hurt or killed on the Internet. Where any exists its because of the victim's or victim's service provider's own gross negligence.

    • Six months gives more time for tying up loose ends, like suspending accounts, moving belongings to storage, returning library books...

      It won't make the sentence any shorter, but it will be easier to come out of.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lashat ( 1041424 )

      Or maybe he just doesn't want to go in yet. It takes some considerable effort to "prepare" for a stay in prison for most non-career criminals.

    • Usually you want to delay your sentencing so you can show the judge what a good boy you're being. It's more difficult for the State to argue that you need to be imprisoned because you are dangerous if you've been behaving yourself for the year or so that the case was pending.

      It's a better argument if you're out on bail. I'm not sure what Sabu's custody status is.

      • He already managed to rack up more charges after the FBI raided him... impersonating a federal agent.

        Good work sabu.

  • pay attention, 1337 haxors (Score:4, Informative)

    by Hazel Bergeron ( 2015538 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @06:34AM (#41107055) Journal

    These aren't honourable revolutionaries who would sooner fall on their own sword. These are antisocial children who play straight into the authorities' hands by allowing the latter to depict all dissent as the work of mere mindless vandals.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      And yet they still have more character than the leaders of this country. This guy organized a conspiracy to DDOS some sites, the digital equivalent of a sit-in, and he's facing over 100 years in jail.

      Barack Obama on the other hand, by failing to prosecute anyone for the massive fraud that crashed our economy, can at best be described as being an accessory after the fact to that fraud. He'd rather protect billionaires who stole trillions than do his job and enforce the law.

      So is Sabu a nice guy? No, but

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Raenex ( 947668 )

        This guy organized a conspiracy to DDOS some sites, the digital equivalent of a sit-in, and he's facing over 100 years in jail.

        A sit-in requires you to literally put your butt on the line and be at risk for arrest. Also, sit-ins were traditionally used for noble causes like racial equality. These guys did stuff "for the lulz". While some attacks had a stated political motivation, many were just gratuitous, such as attacking game servers that had nothing to do with anything.

        They also compromised user account information and released it, and defaced websites with false information. In short, they were a bunch of punks, and deserve to

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hatta ( 162192 )

          A sit-in requires you to literally put your butt on the line and be at risk for arrest.

          Which this guy did.

          They also compromised user account information and released it, and defaced websites with false information. In short, they were a bunch of punks, and deserve to spend a few years in jail.

          I agree. And yet he's still a better person than Barack Obama and the criminals he protects.

  • Ex-Lulzsec-Head (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Who writes this stuff!? Who needs a run-on adjective when you can say with clarity: "Former head of Lulzsec" ?

  • Remember Kids.... (Score:3)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday August 24, 2012 @07:45AM (#41107357) Homepage

    " Sabu has managed to get his court case delayed by six months – thanks to his cooperation with the US Federal authorities in getting other Lulzsec members behind bars. "

    your friends will rat you out in a heartbeat if it give them any advantage. Don't think for a second that any friend of your is loyal to you. Anyone can be bought, some can be bought for a lot less than others.

    Moral of the story? Trust NO ONE if you are doing nefarious things.

    Oh and deny everything to your grave. Deny, Deny, Deny...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lashat ( 1041424 )

      Well, mostly, but his is not entirely true. In the classic prisoner's dilmena game theory exercise there are only two players. "Honor among thieves" can be enforced by the higher-ups in an organization or by a competing power structure within the organization.

    • Certainly it is true that if you tell someone something, they can always tell someone else, so the safest way for something not to get out is to keep completely quiet about it. On the other hand...

      Plenty of small groups of people have done a lot of stuff without any problems, and with everyone keeping quiet about it. This goes from hackers to cells of the Irish Republican Army. There are also many instances of one person getting caught, having extreme pressure, even torture, applied to them and them keep

      • Sabu has no kids, they're not his kids, they're his aunts and have probably returned to her custody or another family member's. Don't believe his bullshit. He maintained a party on welfare lifestyle fucking around on the internet and partying with friends the whole time, he carded from the auto shop he worked at and worked a bunch of other fake shit jobs.

        He was supposedly an ok python programmer all he needed to do was go to some computer related social events and get someone to give him a job, with his so

  • Anonymous (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does not forgive. Does not forget. And tells the cops everything he knows just please don't make him cry again.

    • Lulzec is not Anonymous. Anonymous is not Lulzec.

      Anonymous is a moniker used by hackers all over the world. It's not a group. Lulzec was a group that used this moniker, as does countless of others. In fact there are other branches of Lulzec even.

  • What to do about Jeremy Hammond? He's already gotten one mercy-break for his malicious hacking. Now he's looking at big-time punishment.

    He doesn't seem like a bad kid, but if the judge gives him a break, Hammond is just going to go right back to malicious hacking. And you can't believe anything Hammond says because he lied to the judge the last time around.

    This is sad, but that fool Hammond did it to himself.

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