Former US High School Teacher Admits Role In Celebrity Nude Photo Hack

The fifth man to plead guilty in a massive hack of female celebrities' nude photos is a former high school teacher from central Virginia.

Christopher Brannan, 30, appearing at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond on Monday, admitted that he illegally accessed more than 200 Apple iCloud, Facebook and Yahoo accounts and downloaded people's personal pictures and videos.

Brannan also hacked into the account of his sister-in-law, who was a minor at the time, as well as current and former teachers and students at Lee-Davis High School, where he taught special education until 2015, according to court records.

A Hanover County Public Schools representative declined to comment.

Prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of 34 months in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 25; he has also agreed to pay restitution.

Brannan, like others implicated in what prosecutors call "Celebgate," used social engineering to maneuver his way into celebrities' social media accounts, using research to figure out their security questions and sending fake Apple emails to get login information.

He used a Russian program called Elcomsoft to download entire iCloud accounts.

He would trade user names, passwords and stolen photos online, according to court documents, and at least once he worked with someone else to get into an email account.

The 2014 hacks exposed hundreds of celebrities' personal photos, many of which were shared on the anonymous forum 4chan.

In 2016, Ryan Collins, 38, of Pennsylvania became the first person caught in the celebrity hacking; he served 18 months in prison. George Garofano, a 27-year-old from Connecticut, is serving an eight-month sentence. Emilio Herrera, 33, of Chicago is serving 16 months; Edward Majerczyk, a 31-year-old also from Chicago, was given a nine-month sentence.

In court papers in Brannan's case and others, prosecutors did not name the celebrities, but some have identified themselves.

Jennifer Lawrence and other actors whose nude photos were stolen described the hacks as a sex crime, but the men involved have pleaded guilty only to computer and identity-theft charges.

"[He] was lonely, not socially active, and essentially replacing his own lack of social interaction with the viewing of photos of the lives of others," Herrera's attorneys wrote in arguing that their client should not be labeled a sex offender.

Most of the perpetrators, like Brannan, victimized people they knew personally as well as the celebrities. All of the cases were investigated out of Los Angeles then transferred to federal districts.