Snapchat hacker gets prison for trading intimate images online

By PAULA REED WARD
TribLive

If Michael Yackovich had committed his crimes in person, one of his victims wrote, he would have been considered a sexual predator for being a voyeur.

But because Yackovich pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit online wire fraud and aggravated identity theft — and not sexual acts — he will not be labeled as a sex offender.

Yackovich, 30, of West Newton, pleaded guilty in March in federal court to hacking into hundreds of individual Snapchat accounts, accessing intimate videos and images stored there and then trading them online.

On Monday, he was ordered, as part of a plea agreement, to serve four years in federal prison, three years supervised release and pay more than $38,000 in restitution to four victims.

“Michael and his friends gamefied sexual exploitation,” the victim wrote. “They enjoyed the idea of having intimate images of people around them.

“Their actions were calculated and purposeful.”

It was, she wrote, a form of sexually deviant behavior.

“I see Michael Yackovich as a sexual predator,” she wrote. “No different than a creep hiding in a locker room.”

Prosecutors charged seven people as part of the conspiracy.

So far, four have pleaded guilty.

Yackovich is the first to be sentenced.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold told the judge on Monday that investigators have identified 140 victims, and another 150 people remain unidentified.

According to prosecutors, the defendants exchanged information on online platforms seeking out and then trading intimate photos and videos they illegally obtained by hacking into victims’ Snapchat accounts.

In some instances, the defendants’ attempts to hack the accounts would trigger Snapchat to send a legitimate authorization code to the real account holder, and then the defendants would simultaneously text them, masquerading as the company and asking for the code.

Once they had it, they could log in and reset the password and access the account, where they would look for intimate images.

In a written statement Yackovich provided police, he wrote: “I accessed Snapchat accounts of women without their consent. I would trick them into giving me the information I needed to reset their password by pretending to be Snapchat.”

He estimated attempting to access 500 accounts, getting into 50, and downloading images from 15 to 20. In addition, the co-conspirators often shared their lists of victims, referring to some as “mutuals,” who were friends of a friend, or as “IRL,” for people they knew “in real life.”

On Monday, Yackovich apologized.

“I didn’t recognize the impact this would have on you,” he said to the victims.

He acknowledged that his actions — along with those of his co-conspirators — took away the victims’ sense of security, privacy and dignity.

But when asked by the judge why he did what he did, Yackovich couldn’t answer, instead saying only, “I didn’t think it through.”

The victim, whose impact letter was read by the prosecutor, said she knows why Yackovich did it: To feel useful, important, powerful.

She wrote that she does not care to tell Yackovich how his crimes made her feel.

“Michael Yackovich is not worthy of my vulnerability,” she wrote.

The woman was critical of the way federal law is written — and that it hasn’t caught up to technology.

Yackovich did not plead guilty to a sex crime, and therefore is not required to register as a sex offender.

In sentencing the defendant, Chief U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon called his crimes ”incredibly antisocial behavior.

“These harms are serious and lasting,” she said. “You did it for your own personal satisfaction, and that is deplorable.”