The offender pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a computer, mischief to data, and failing to comply with a release order after hacking and defacing the Texas GOP website and distributing 180 GB of stolen data.
The court weighed the significant aggravating factors of a sophisticated, large-scale cyber attack targeting a political organization against mitigating factors including the offender's lack of a prior record, guilty pleas, and harsh pre-trial custody conditions.
A global sentence of 18 months was imposed, reduced to 175 days to serve after credit for pre-trial custody.
