Posted on 04/27/2010 7:59:10 AM PDT by SmithL
Political ploy gone bust or prankish peek gone awry?
That is the question facing jurors today in U.S. District Court as they begin deliberating the fate of former University of Tennessee student David C. Kernell.
Kernell, 22, is standing trial on charges he guessed his way past the security features on then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo! e-mail account. Authorities allege he perused some of its contents, downloaded photos, captured screenshots and ultimately posted the new password he set on an Internet discussion site, allowing 10 people in the U.S. and abroad to make more than 70 forays into the account.
The high-profile trial that drew a throng of national media organizations as Palin, former GOP presidential running mate and current political celebrity, took the witness stand came to a close Monday. Kernell, a 20-year-old economics major at the time of the 2008 incident, opted not to testify.
The week-long trial did not change the respective positions staked out by opposing sides at the outset of the case.
"He's not a kid," Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle told jurors Monday. "He's a man old enough to know better. He set out to do something malicious from the very beginning."
That something malicious, Weddle insisted, was to try to derail the Republican presidential campaign of which Palin was a part by foraging through the account in hopes of finding politically damaging information.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Regarding count three, computer fraud, or the lesser offense, unauthorized computer access, jurors Tuesday specifically wanted to know if accessing a computer is the act of logging on “only” or other actions.
The judge told jurors to follow the original instructions given at the beginning of deliberations.
Kernell faces a 50-year prision term if convicted on all four counts.
Jurors resume deliberations Wednesday at 9:00 a.m.
This punk may walk these charges. Just damn.
Actually, it was more personal than trying to derail the political campaign. He set out to publicly humiliate Sarah Palin, a nasty and criminal violation of privacy.
Here are a series of FReeper articles on the E-mail Hacker, David Kernell and Sarah Palin ...
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