Hacker ‘Guccifer’ Sentenced to Four Years

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar aka Guccifer was sentenced Thursday to 52 months in prison for criminal access of private data and aggravated identity theft after admitting to hacking a member of the Bush family.

Lazar, 44, pleaded guilty on May 25 for his unauthorized access to the email and social media accounts of American citizens, including "an immediate family member of two former U.S. presidents, a former member of the U.S. Cabinet, a former member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former presidential advisor," according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Lazar was also charged with aggravated identify theft for releasing his victims' emails and private records, such as their medial or financial information.

The hacker claimed on a series of interviews broadcast on Fox, CNN and MSNBC that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was the victim of his security breaches when he accessed her private server housed at her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.

That claim is unconfirmed and has been denied by FBI Director James Comey.

Lazar's hacks were also reported to have affected former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a family member of former U.S. president George W. Bush and Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide.

Lazar shared personal photographs he obtained through the hacks, according to the indictment filed in 2014.

Some of his offenses, as it was determined by a grand jury, included a series of messages he posted on the social media pages of a former U.S. Cabinet member, including "You will burn in hell, Bush!" and "Kill the illuminati! Tomorrow's world will be a world free of illuminati or will be no more!"

Lazar was extradited to the U.S. from Romania in May. Court documents revealed that he also went by the aliases Guccifer Seven, Micul Fum and Marcel Lazar Lehel.

The maximum penalty Lazar could have faced for unauthorized access to a protected computer would have been a five-year prison term. For the aggravated identity theft charge alone, the maximum penalty is a two-year jail sentence and a fine up to $250,000.

As part of his sentence, Lazar will also be forced to forfeit all of his assets.

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