MANHATTAN (CN) — Already serving a 42-year sentence for child pornography, a Florida man pleaded guilty on Thursday to hacking into a “global charitable organization” reported to be the Clinton Foundation.
U.S. Secret Service agents arrested Timothy Sedlak in his Florida home on Sept. 11, 2015, after authorities discovered nearly 400,000 attempts to crack into the network of an unnamed New York-based charity.
Though prosecutors never named the organization, Reuters obtained an uncensored version of a now-redacted document stating that the agents questioned Sedlak about notes they had found referring to Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea.
Sedlak told agents during a five-hour interrogation, according to court papers, that he had been researching “charitable organizations to try to determine if such organizations are unintentionally financing jihadist groups by sending, to charitable organizations in the Middle East, funds which are then seized by jihadist groups.”
Barely audible in delivering his guilty plea on Thursday, Sedlak confirmed in broad strokes the details of the allegations against him.
“In June and July 2015, I made many attempts to determine passwords,” Sedlak said, before his voice trailed off.
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams interjected: “To do what?”
Sedlak mumbled that he had attempted to access emails of an organization that he knew disrupted their ability to work.
“I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I attempted that without their authorization,” he said.
Between June 22 and July 8 alone, Sedlak allegedly tried to log on to 20 email accounts roughly 195,000 times.
Secret Service agents seized about 30 of Sedlak’s computers on the day of his arrest.
Sedlak’s guilty plea for a count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act exposes him to up to an additional two years in prison. He also faces up to a $250,000 fine and restitution.
On Aug. 22 of last year, Sedlak was sentenced for production and possession of child pornography.
Agents investigating the hacking case discovered Sedlak took photographs of himself sexually abusing an infant child, once at the age of 1 and again at age 3.
Sedlak will learn what sentence he faces for hacking on June 6 at 1 p.m.
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