Graham Ivan Clark, the 18-year-old who led the infamous Twitter hack on July 15th last year, pleaded guilty and will have to serve a three-year prison sentence, according to a report by the Tampa Bay Times.
Clark was only 17 when he led the attack on Twitter that saw some of the world's most popular profiles — including current United States president Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Barack Obama — taken over to promote a giveaway scam in which Twitter users were asked to send bitcoin to an address controlled by Clark with the promise that the money sent would be doubled. Clark made over $100,000 off of the scam.
He was arrested before the end of July and is now credited with 229 days of time served ahead of his sentence, which has been lessened as Clark is considered a "youthful offender." Clark's young age also means that he could serve a portion of his sentence at a boot camp. He is further banned from using computers without permission and supervision from United States law enforcement.
Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement that “Graham Clark needs to be held accountable for that crime, and other potential scammers out there need to see the consequences [...] In this case, we’ve been able to deliver those consequences while recognizing that our goal with any child, whenever possible, is to have them learn their lesson without destroying their future.”
Clark did not conduct the attack by himself; he met his conspirators on online account selling forum OGusers. His collaborators had access to internal Twitter tools, which can reset account email addresses to allow anyone to access them. Clark’s partners, Nima Fazeli of Orlando and Mason Sheppard of the UK, were charged with federal crimes as well.