'King of revenge porn' and IsAnyoneUp owner Hunter Moore given two and a half years in prison

Moore's website specialised in posting 'revenge porn' pictures of people that had either been sent in by ex-partners or stolen through the hacking of victims' email accounts

Doug Bolton
Friday 04 December 2015 20:26 GMT
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Hunter Moore was also ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and pay a $2,000 fine
Hunter Moore was also ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and pay a $2,000 fine (The Freakbeat/YouTube)

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Hunter Moore, the former owner and operator of a 'revenge porn' site called IsAnyoneUp.com, has been sentenced to two and half years in prison by a California court.

After pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft and unauthorised access to a protected computer to obtain information for the purposes of private financial gain in February this year, Moore was handed his prison sentence on 3 December.

He will also undergo a mental health evaluation, spend three years under supervised release after he leaves prison, and pay a $2,000 fine.

IsAnyoneUp was launched in 2010 and shut down two years later. It specialised in posting explicit nude pictures without their subjects' consent - some of the images were sent to Moore by victims’ ex-partners, but a significant number were obtained by Moore and Charles Evens, an alleged accomplice who was paid by Moore to hack into Google email accounts and take nude photos from them.

Most of the victims has their names, contact information and social media profiles published alongside the pictures.

Evens has also been jailed for his part in the site, after being handed 25 months in prison and a $2,000 fine by a judge last month.

At the height of the site's popularity, Moore was proud of his notoriety, telling Rolling Stone that he made up to $30,000 a month from the site during an interview for an article titled: 'Hunter Moore - The Most Hated Man on the Internet'.

In 2012 he sold the site to BullyVille.com, an anti-bullying site that has itself ben accused of bullying. Bullyville took IsAnyoneUp down, and Moore appeared to apologise in an open letter, writing: "I think it's important that everyone realises the damage that online bullying can cause."

As City News Service reports, US district judge Dolly Gee said Moore "hid behind his online persona and engaged in aberrant behaviour."

She told him: "Now you must face the consequences of your own actions. Your poor judgement has caused much pain to your victims and your family."

Prosecuting, Assistant US Attorney Wesley Hsu told the court Moore "was the king of revenge porn - and he revelled in that."

He only "changed his tune" after he was arrested in January 2014, Hsu added.

Speaking to the judge, Moore's attorney Robert Holley said: "He's completely different than he was. He'll never do anything like this again."

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