Before U.S. intelligence officials began investigating Russian-led cyberattacks in the 2016 presidential election, a Florida man reportedly made 400,000 attempts to hack into the Clinton Foundation’s computer network, claiming he was a “private investigator” researching whether the charity was inadvertently providing funding to Islamist militant groups.
That man, Timothy Sedlak, 44, of Ocoee, Florida, was sentenced in Manhattan federal court Monday to 18 months in prison for attempting to access the global charitable organization’s computers without authorization, and as a result, “recklessly causing damage” to the foundation’s computers, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Sedlak was arrested in September 2015 and pleaded guilty in February. Officials never identified the Manhattan-based global charity that was targeted, but Reuters obtained a court filing that stated federal agents questioned Sedlak about notes they found with references to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
The court documents, which were later redacted, stated Sedlak told the agents the Clintons “came up in his research,” Reuters reported.
“The filing’s description of the Clintons matched prosecutors’ descriptions of two previously unnamed individuals who were said to be executives at the charity,” Reuters reported in February.
Sedlak’s “research” consisted of trying to figure out if philanthropies were unintentionally financing Islamist militant groups through charitable organizations in the Middle East. Sedlak told Secret Service agents he hoped to sell his findings, according to a federal news release.
The Clinton Foundation, created by former President Bill Clinton shortly after he left office in 2001, has grown into a $2 billion global philanthropy that funds health care, education and environmental initiatives worldwide. Leading up to the presidential election, the organization faced scrutiny from critics who charged that donations from corporate and foreign interests to the foundation created a conflict of interest for Hillary Clinton as she pursued the presidency. Chelsea Clinton is the vice chair of the foundation.
Federal investigators discovered Sedlak during summer 2015, when Clinton Foundation employees had trouble accessing their email accounts. Investigators tracked hacking attempts to computers linked to two internet protocol addresses at Sedlak’s Florida home. From June to July 2015, Sedlak had made 195,000 attempts to crack into 20 email accounts from one IP address, and another 195,000 attempts to log into six email accounts from the other IP address, according to Monday’s news release.
“Timothy Sedlak used dozens of computers and electronic devices to unlawfully access others’ computer networks, making hundreds of thousands of attempts to steal information from one charitable organization,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said in the release. “Although he was ultimately unsuccessful, Sedlak’s efforts impaired the organization’s ability to operate.”
In a search warrant of Sedlak’s home, Secret Service agents found and seized 42 computers and electronic devices, 31 of which contained hacking software. They discovered he had been using lists of email addresses and servers, password-cracking tools and other software to target numerous charities, political organizations, law firms and businesses in the U.S. and abroad. Sedlak used a “brute force” password-cracking tool to “launch a relentless barrage of potential passwords” at email accounts as a way of trying to break into them, a February news release stated.
Sedlak admitted in his guilty plea that he made many attempts to determine passwords and crack into email accounts.
“I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I attempted that without their authorization,” he said, Courthouse News Service reported.
Through their search of the Florida home for the federal hacking case, investigators also came across photographs of Sedlak sexually abusing a small child on two different instances — first when the child was a year old, and second when the child was 3. They also found hundreds of pictures of child pornography downloaded from the internet. Sedlak was subsequently found guilty of production and possession of child pornography and sentenced to 42 years in federal prison.
A judge on Monday ruled that Sedlak will be able to serve his 18 months in prison concurrently with his previous sentence, meaning he won’t have to spend any additional time in prison as a result of his hacking crime.
Reading from prepared remarks in his sentencing hearing Monday, Sedlak’s voice broke. He apologized to the people he tried to hack, acknowledging he “caused them to be afraid for their privacy and to feel violated,” Courthouse News Service reported.
“I’ve hurt many people in different ways with what I’ve done, including everyone who uses electronic mail by making them feel insecure,” Sedlak said.
Defense attorney Annalisa Miron also argued that her client’s attempts to access the network were largely unsuccessful. She made sure to differentiate Sedlak’s case from the probes into potential Russian cyberattacks on Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, Courthouse News Service reported.
“He was not driven to affect the election or anything like that,” she said.
But prosecutors disagreed with the sentencing decision, arguing Sedlak should face up to two more years in prison because of the “profound” nature and impact of cyberthreats, Reuters reported.
“The work of hackers like Sedlak who are motivated to target U.S. government officials and political candidates can have severe consequences of undermining public confidence and trust in our government institutions and political system,” prosecutors wrote.