A Connecticut man will spend months behind bars for his role in scheme that exposed intimate photos of female celebrities.
According to TMZ, 26-year-old George Garofano was sentenced to eight months in prison Wednesday, more than four months after he admitted to gaining unauthorized access to dozens of iCloud accounts and posting the victims’ personal photos online. Garofano was one of four men who were charged in the scheme known as “Celebgate.” The victims included Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Vanessa Hudgins, and Jennifer Lawrence, who opened up about the incident in a 2014 Vanity Fair interview.
“It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting,” the Oscar-winning actress said. “It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.
“[…] Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”
Garofano pleaded guilty to his crimes back in April, when he admitted to contacting the victims with an email that appeared as an Apple security account. He would then instruct the targets to send their usernames and passwords, or enter them into a third-party website; once he had their login information, he began to steal their photos and videos.
“It will take me a while to forgive myself for this, and I am disappointed in myself,” Garofano said in a court filing. “I feel remorse for anyone that could have been affected by this on any scale, public or private. It is a part of my life that I will always regret, as it has never been a reflection of who I am as an individual.”
Following his eight-month prison sentence, Garofano will be placed on three years of supervised release.
