Posted on 08/29/2011 9:09:10 AM PDT by sinanju
David C. Kernell, 23, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and obstruction of justice, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney William C. Killian for the Eastern District of Tennessee. U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Phillips also imposed a three-year term of supervised released. In imposing the prison sentence, Judge Phillips recommended service at Midway Sanction Center, but noted that the Bureau of Prisons would decide where Kernell would serve his sentence.
On April 30, 2010, after a week-long trial, a jury found Kernell guilty of one count of misdemeanor unauthorized access to obtain information from a computer and one count of obstruction of justice. The jury found Kernell not guilty of wire fraud. The jury could not reach a verdict on the identity theft charge and the judge declared a mistrial as to that charge.
According to evidence presented at trial, on Sept. 16, 2008, Kernell, a resident of Knoxville, Tenn., obtained unauthorized access to former Gov. Palin’s personal e-mail account by resetting the account password. Evidence showed that after answering a series of security questions that allowed him to reset the password and gain access to the e-mail account, Kernell read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information. Kernell posted screenshots of the e-mails and other personal information to a public website. Kernell also posted the new e-mail account password that he had created, thus providing access to the account by others.
Evidence at trial showed that Kernell became aware on Sept. 16, 2008, after the illegal entry into the email account, of a possible FBI investigation. Evidence showed that Kernell began a series of deletions of records and documents with the intent to impede an anticipated FBI investigation.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski currently detailed to the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. CCIPS Trial Attorney Josh Goldfoot provided significant assistance. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Anchorage, Alaska, and Knoxville field offices.
For those of you who may be wondering if that dear little scamp ever actually suffered any adult-size consequences for his adorable prank. I do recall that Sarah and her family testified in full at the trial of the trouble his actions had caused them. Sarah has come under ritual criticism from the usual suspects for not donning the traditional "I'm a Republican, kick me" sign that GWB wore on his back oh-so-proudly.
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Why thank you. That confirms it.
Kernell’s father, Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, has served in the Tennessee House since 1974. (worse than either Orrin Hatch or “Dick” Lugar in terms of “service to his community”).
Looks like the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree. But this guy is from Memphis, the liberal $hithole of the Mid-South so they are probably celebrating the kid going to the slammer.
That's from the locator address. In English, he's not in prison. He's in a community based program, ie halfway house.
“Kernell’s father, Democratic Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis”...
I wonder how dear old daddy feels about getting his son in hot water. Just taking one for the team, right daddy.
If there was ever any evidence that this clown was determined to play politics all the way at his trial this should suffice:
“For reasons never adequately explained by the defense, Kernell essentially sought access to every Palin email account and wanted copies of all emails. This amounted to a large scale fishing expedition that appeared more like a political maneuver than part of any justified legal defense. The court denied the overbroad and intrusive requests, and Judge Shirley ruled that Kernell “has received most of the requested materials in discovery and that the remainder are irrelevant or inadmissible at trial” (Shirley, 2010, p. 2). Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 17 stipulates that a subpoena may be issued to produce “any books, papers, documents, data, or other objects the subpoena designates,” and that all parties and their lawyers may inspect these documents; however, “[t]he Court may quash or modify a Rule 17 subpoena upon a motion promptly made if ‘compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive’ ” (Shirley, 2010, p. 2).
The government argued that the subpoenas were very broad and that the items requested were not relevant or admissible. With regard particularly to the subpoenas for information from Yahoo! and 4Chan, the government characterized most of the materials requested as duplicating discovery that the defendant had already received. It asserted that the materials that were not duplicative were irrelevant and inadmissible (Shirley, 2010, p. 2).
Most importantly, Judge Shirley denied the request to subpoena the content of email from any of Gov. Palin’s accounts. “The requests must be further narrowed to specifically exclude the content of emails” (Shirley, 2010, p. 5).”
http://us4palin.com/us-district-court-denies-subpoena-of-gov-palins-emails/
Even on the stand being tried for his crime he was doing his obnoxious worst to try to embarrass Palin further. Whatever, the important thing is that Sarah refused to nobly laugh it off and testified against him at trial. To my knowledge, no one has since repeated Kern’s harmless little “college prank”. I only wish she had sued him. Politics ain’t beanbag, if he had been allowed to get away with it, incidents such as these would be happening to Sarah on a weekly basis.
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