Fraudster sentenced

Michael Fish still to be prosecuted for alleged fabricating of letters

A federal judge sentenced Michael P. Fish to 9¼ years in prison Friday, saying he depravedly hacked into the accounts of dozens of unsuspecting female students at SUNY Plattsburgh, stole their private photos and sold the images on the internet.

With his family watching on a courtroom bench, the 26year-old Fish sat in a green jail outfit as U.S. District Judge Mae D’agostino bluntly told him his victimization of 60 women over a three-year period was deeply troubling and included “thoroughly disgusting ” communications.

The judge said Fish was not satisfied merely watching Xrated images of women that he stole after hacking into their private social media accounts. Instead, Fish made sure the women’s faces and names were highlighted in the videos and collages he exchanged with others online. Fish mixed erotic images of the victims with innocent photos of them at graduations or at other events.

“It’s like you wanted to inflict pain and as much embarrassment on these women as you possibly could,” D’agostino told Fish. “It’s very, very disturbing and very, very depraved.”

Fish, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to identity theft, computer intrusion causing damage, and possession of child pornography for possessing 600 images of pre-pubescent children, was sentenced more than a year later than initially expected. On Dec. 31, 2020, the Times Union first reported that Fish allegedly fabricated in whole or part more than a half-dozen self-serving character letters to D’agostino sent under the names of, among others, his mother, grandparents, a local priest and a district director for U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Fish still faces federal obstruction of justice charges for the letters, but they also impacted his legal fate Friday. Acceptance of responsibility is a factor that federal judges consider in sentencing; D’agostino ruled that Fish had not accepted responsibility. She noted that when Fish was arrested, he discarded a USB flash drive that prosecutors said could have contained more child pornography.

D’agostino said Fish violated conditions of his probation multiple times. And she said that, to her, his fabrication of character letters was not a mere allegation but a certainty. D’agostino, a federal judge since 2011, had never before seen a defendant forge a character letter.

When the judge now reviews such letters sent on behalf of defendants, “I ask myself, ‘Did that come from who purportedly wrote that?’” D’agostino divulged.

Fish’s Glens Falls-based attorney, Lawrence Elmen, did not dispute that his client fabricated the letters. Elmen referred to Fish’s fabrications of the letters as “stupid and idiotic” — and used similar language at least four other times to describe the act. Elmen said Fish “absolutely panicked” after an initial calculation of Fish’s potential prison time put his exposure at more than 14 years behind bars. The judge and prosecutors agreed the initial calculation was higher than it should have been.

Elmen repeatedly criticized Fish’s former defense attorney without mentioning the lawyer by name. The judge stopped Elmen, saying: “I don’t think we can blame the previous lawyer for everything.”

Elmen also told the judge he was not blaming Fish’s victims, but nevertheless questioned why they kept nude images of themselves on computers. Elmen said his client, who was born in South Korea and adopted by his Albany family as a child, made a “descent into hell” due to alcohol, drugs and pornography.

When given a chance to speak, Fish apologized to the victims, his family and the judge. He said he is a different man now than he was at the time of his crimes.

“I’m truly in a hell of my own making and I understand that I broke the law,” he said.

In 2020, Fish admitted that between 2016 and 2019, when he attended SUNY Plattsburgh and later Albany Law School, he hacked into the accounts of the female students in the SUNY Plattsburgh school computer network. He made new passwords, broke into the social media accounts of female students, accessed their personal information — and then downloaded sexually explicit and embarrassing photos stored in other accounts. Fish, in turn, traded the stolen photos on the internet. The victims were identified in the photos.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rosenthal, joined by Michael J. Stawasz, a Department of Justice deputy chief for computer crime, said Fish reveled in humiliating the victims and even boasted in one instance: “I love it when they are all professional but are really dirty (slang term for ‘whores’).”

The prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Fish to at least nine years and three months in prison, and up to 11 years. Elmen had asked for seven years and three months.

At the end of the sentencing, the judge reminded Fish that he is intelligent. D’agostino told Fish she was concerned he could meet like-minded individuals in prison, suggesting it could return him down a wrong road.

“I worry about you, Mr. Fish, because you’re so smart,” D’agostino said. She told Fish that once he is released from prison, he can still lead a productive life but needs to want it and work for it.

Fish will be on supervised release for 15 years after leaving prison. He must pay the university $35,430 in restitution.

Last August, D’agostino sentenced Fish’s accomplice, Nicholas Faber, to three years in prison for computer intrusion causing damage and aggravated identity theft.