David Kernell, the former Tennessee student convicted of hacking into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account, was sentenced on Friday to one year in custody.
Kernell, 22, was convicted earlier this year of misdemeanor computer intrusion and a felony count of obstruction of justice. The jury found him not guilty of a wire-fraud charge and hung on a fourth charge for identity theft, after four days of deliberating.
The convictions carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in custody and a possible fine of up to $250,000. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence of between 15 and 21 months in prison. The government was seeking 18 months, but Kernell's attorney asked the court to forgo a prison sentence and give his client probation instead.
Kernell was sentenced to one year and one day in custody and three years of probation. Federal Judge Thomas W. Phillips recommended that his sentence be served in a halfway house in Tennessee, although his destination will be determined by the federal Bureau of Prisons. The judge also recommended that Kernell get mental health treatment. According to court filings, Kernell had suffered from depression since the age of 11.
Kernell smiled when he heard the announcement, according to the Associated Press. Before the judge announced his sentence, Kernell apologized to Sarah Palin and said he was aware that his action would affect him for the rest of his life.
Kernell, son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell and Army Lt. Col. Lillian Landrigan, was found to have deleted evidence from his hard drive to thwart investigators, which was the most serious charge.
Threat Level broke the story in September 2008 that someone using the name “Rubico” had obtained access to Palin’s personal Yahoo e-mail account. Palin was then running for vice president on the Republican ticket. Kernell got into the account by using publicly available information -- such as Palin's birthdate and postal ZIP code -- to reset the password to "popcorn" and gain control of her account.
Photos taken from the account — including two pictures of Palin's children — and five screen shots of e-mail messages were then posted on 4Chan and Imageshack. Bloggers quickly traced “Rubico” to Kernell.
Kernell, a University of Tennessee economics student at the time, had targeted Palin, he wrote in comments online, because he'd hoped to find information that would help derail her campaign and prevent her from being elected.
Although Kernell never found information in the account that was damaging to her campaign, the hack did show that Palin used her personal e-mail account to conduct official Alaska state business. Critics had accused the Alaska governor and her staff of using personal e-mail accounts to avoid public oversight.
Palin called the hacking of her Yahoo e-mail account “the most disruptive and discouraging” incident in that year’s presidential campaign. She and her daughter Bristol testified at Kernell's trial that the hacking had caused the family emotional distress.
Kernell's attorney, in seeking probation for his client, argued that although Kernell might have deleted evidence, he didn't destroy the computer entirely or get rid of it.
"The proof showed that Mr. Kernell very quickly took actions that resulted in the evidence being preserved," defense attorney Wade Davies wrote. He also said that his client's behavior was an "aberration" from his normal conduct and that the "public humiliation, trial and felony conviction" his client had endured were enough to deter him from future crimes.
"General deterrence has been achieved in this case by educating the public that accessing another’s e-mail account is conduct that violates federal law," Davies wrote.
David Kernell, left, leaves the Federal Courthouse with his mother, Lt. Col. Lillian Landrigan, center, and attorney Wade Davies, right Friday, Nov. 12, 2010 in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)
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