Florida teen gets 3 years for fraud and hack of celebrity Twitter accounts
Hurricanes second-year quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is competing for the backup job to D’Eriq King, who is rehabbing a torn ACL. Van Dyke has put COVID issues behind him.
A Florida teenager was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for his role in hacking the Twitter accounts of prominent politicians, celebrities and technology moguls and scamming people around the globe out of more than $100,000 in Bitcoin.
Graham Ivan Clark, 18, pleaded guilty to fraud charges as part of a deal with Hillsborough County prosecutors, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Clark was the mastermind behind the scheme to take over prominent Twitter accounts and send tweets seeking Bitcoin payments, prosecutors said. During the highprofile security breach on
July 15, tweets were sent from the accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and tech billionaires, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also targeted.
Prosecutors said Clark was tried in state court instead of federal court because he was 17 at the time of the crimes, and state law allowed greater flexibility to try a minor as an adult in a financialfraud case.
Two other men also were charged in the case. Mason Sheppard, of the United Kingdom, and Nima Fazeli, of Orlando, were charged separately in federal court.
Miami has been the beneficiary of a well documented wave of entrepreneurial enthusiasm over the past few months. Journalists, politicians and high-profile individuals predict that our city is the next Silicon Valley.
The time has come for the city’s leaders to clearly and definitively lay out the goals for this moment. What does success look like if we fully realize this opportunity in a manner that benefits all of Miami?
In our view, success is a Miami comprising an unparalleled variety of technology and technology-enabled companies that develop and retain local talent. It is a Miami with public and private entities that commit longterm resources and attention to accelerate the improvements in education, transit and affordability that our innovation hub needs most. Success is a Miami that avoids the mistakes of other cities — because we built it our way.
Miami is not Silicon Valley and does not want to be. We are not a collection of overfunded, “disruptive” companies hellbent on unicorn status or bust. Miami is a city of immigrants. We know what it is like to have our backs against the wall, to be the underdog, but to still have the certainty that we will persevere in our endeavors. We are entrepreneurs, often by necessity. We are builders of companies despite the lack of capital available, not because of its abundance. We are passionate, self-reliant, and creative. And we are opportunistic. Miami should support an ecosystem that prioritizes our entrepreneurs doing the hard work and celebrates our collective grit.
We believe Miami can be a global innovation hub known not for its size, but rather for its impact and for the quality Miami has always embodied: diversity. Not only ethnic and cultural diversity, but also diversity of industry, diversity of thought, diversity of opportunity and diversity of approach. We envision an ever-expanding mesh of Miami-based companies supporting each other’s growth, maturation and success. This ecosystem attracts investors because our companies are ready to put capital to work, not the other way around. Tax policies and our quality of life should not be the main reason investors are flocking here.
In simpler terms, if we hit enough singles and doubles, we will inevitably hit home runs. In doing so, we will create sustainable middle-class jobs, reverse our growing income disparity, bring back homegrown talent and further motivate local governments to focus intently their attention on the education, affordable housing and public transit that workers need.
Miami’s entrepreneurs are among this city’s most outspoken ambassadors, and we appreciate those coming to our city in this exciting moment. However, we are a nascent ecosystem, and preconceived notions about what Miami should be may compromise our unique values, culture and strengths. Now, more than ever, we need a clear vision from our leaders that benefits all of Miami. It starts with our leaders spending more time in our own back yard, engaging the companies and founders that already are here and always will be.
Because no matter how this all plays out, Miami will always be our home.
When the head football coach of a major college program calls you “a beast” and a talented teammate independently uses the same word, that’s a compliment — even if you’re a lowkey, unassuming one who had to endure testing positive twice for COVID-19 last season.
Hurricanes second-year freshman quarterback Tyler Van Dyke is battling for the backup job to record-breaking starter D’Eriq King, now rehabbing from a torn ACL. But don’t expect him to be sought out for a lead role in a future sports flick. Van Dyke, who met the media Tuesday for the first time since he arrived in Coral Gables as a 2020 early enrollee, appears to be a genuine, serious young man who has built up his now 6-4, 225-pound body and his game — and is taking his cues from King to grow into a leader.
“D’Eriq King is not an insanely vocal person,” UM coach Manny Diaz said, when asked about Van Dyke’s subdued personality after Day 2 of spring practice. “You don’t have to be the Hollywood version of the quarterback that gives a speech with the dramatic music playing in the background to be a leader.
“The first thing is, you want to follow a leader who does things the right
MORE INSIDE
Two new UM defensive backs are impressing in spring drills, 16A
way, and that’s what Tyler does. He’s just so competitive and he’s so hardworking. I think his natural personality, that’s one of the things that I’m looking forward to seeing over the next four-and-ahalf weeks — seeing his personality come out. You can see in our offseason program, in our tug-ofwar drills and things like that. Now the ball aspect will have a chance to come. Who he is as a person on the field is still a work in progress, in a good way.”
Diaz and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Rhett Lashlee said Friday that Van Dyke topped the charts in UM’s offseason program. “The way he works, the way he does everything right,” Diaz said. “You want
Tyler on your team. That guys scores highly in everything.”
Lashlee said Van Dyke, who played in two games last year and threw two incomplete passes, had a “phenomenal” first year and will get “the bulk” of the spring reps. Newcomer Jake Garcia, a vaunted quarterback out of Southern California and then Georgia, is being limited for now by a foot injury he sustained at the end of his senior high school season. The other competitor in the quarterback race is redshirt freshman Peyton Matocha.
‘INTANGIBLE TRAIT’
“Tyler just has something about him,” Lashlee said. “There’s an intangible trait about Tyler.
Yeah, he can throw the football well and he’s a talented athlete, but he does everything right. He competes hard. The guys love him. He carries himself like you want a quarterback to carry himself.”
Van Dyke said he is doing his best to learn from King.
“D’Eriq is really a calm, relaxed person,” Van
Dyke said. “He’s very poised on the field, off the field. And he’s a great leader. I’m really trying to learn from him on his leadership and the way he does his daily routine — what he does around football and outside of football too. I feel like I’ve learned a lot from him this whole past year. It’s been good.”
Top Canes receiver
Mike Harley described Van Dyke as “cool, calm and collected,” but said “he gets the ball where it needs to be” and “runs the offense like he’s
QB1.”
“He’s just not really that vocal,” Harley said. “But on the field he’s a solid general.”
Van Dyke, who changed his jersey number from 19 to 9, said he has put on 15 pounds since January, including “6.5 pounds of muscle mass.”
“I feel a lot better than I was a year ago.”
No wonder. Van Dyke said he tested positive for the coronavirus once before 2020 fall camp, “and I was out for contact tracing for two weeks,” and then “when the whole football program shut down [in November] I tested positive again.”
“I mean, I was doing everything right,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess it’s in me. It was tough.”
PREP CAREER
Initially rated a threestar prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings and four-star prospect by Rivals when he committed to UM in April 2019, Van Dyke became a consensus fourstar quarterback by the time he graduated from Suffield Academy in Connecticut.
Van Dyke was rated the No. 2 pro-style quarterback and top player in Connecticut by ESPN and No. 9 pro-style signal caller by 247. He helped Suffield to an undefeated 2019 season and New England Preparatory School Athletic Council Class A Championship. He finished the 2019 season with 2,260 passing yards and 21 touchdowns on 123 completions (61.5 percent) in 200 pass attempts, with six interceptions.
His prep career stats: 290 of 497 (58.4) for 4,643 yards and 39 touchdowns, with 16 interceptions.
Van Dyke, who said he’s taking the first-team reps for now, said he’s “a pro-style quarterback” who also “can make plays on the run.”
“I can extend plays when the pocket is collapsing. I can even do some zone read stuff — maybe not like D’Eriq, but
if they give it to me I’ll take it.”
PARADISE CAMP
Van Dyke first got to know UM running back Donald Chaney Jr. at the June 2019 Paradise Camp, when the quarterback completed all eight 7-on-7 pass attempts in front of Canes coaches and media members. One of his passcatchers was Chaney, now a second-year freshman who played in all 11 games last season and had 322 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 68 carries.
“He’s a beast, man,” Chaney said. “Things come easy to him. I’ve seen him learn something within five minutes that it would probably take me a day to learn. He’s a really smart guy, man, really smart. He knows how to work the field, knows how to read the defense. It’s only going to get better from here for him.”
Chaney insisted that
Van Dyke, whom he calls “TVD,” can take off and run. “Believe it or not guys, TVD can run,” Chaney said. “He’ll get out of the pocket.
“...We’ve been very, very close. We do a lot of things together. All you’ve got to do is build a bond with TVD and he’ll come out of his comfort zone.”
Said center Corey Gaynor: “Tyler is a very tough dude.”
For now, Van Dyke said he is watching extra film, taking advice from multiple coaches, including senior quality control analyst/offense Jonathan Brewer, and “trying to gain confidence” during these 15 spring practices. Academically, he will soon transition to the School of Business, where he plans to major in finance.
“Someone on the staff was telling me about confidence and how important it is to go out there and try not to be nervous and just do what you’ve got to do,” Van Dyke said. “Do your job, lead the team to score a touchdown ultimately and win the game.
“I didn’t get as many reps as I wanted last year in practice just because of the whole COVID situation, so I’m really excited for this spring.”