Hacker to serve time in prison

Sentenced for theft of naked photos, videos of students

A federal judge handed a three-year prison sentence Thursday to a former high school valedictorian who hacked into the computers of dozens of unsuspecting female students at SUNY Plattsburgh to steal their naked photos and videos for trade with interested buyers.

Nicholas Faber, 25, an accomplice of yet-to-be sentenced Albany fraudster Michael P. Fish, in the hacking scheme, had hoped to receive two years in prison at his sentencing. Instead, U.S. District Judge Mae D’agostino imposed the threeyear term, along with three years of federal supervision when he leaves prison.

“You did tremendous damage young man, you really did,” D’agostino told Faber, whose family was present.

Unlike many defendants she sentences in U.S. District Court, the judge told Faber he has a support system and is extremely intelligent. Faber, who graduated from Greece Olympia High School outside Rochester in 2014, was a valedictorian, the judge said.

But D’agostino told Faber he has a dark side and that he appeared to delight in gaining access to his victims’ computer devices. She told Faber he acted with “laser-like determination” to victimize women who had no idea “evil was lurking.”

Faber, who graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2017, was attending St. John Fisher College outside Rochester when he “threw it all away,” he told the judge when afforded a chance to speak.

The defendant, whom the judge said was diagnosed with voyeurism, said: “If I could go back in time, I would try to get the help I needed sooner ... you can’t undo it and it’s going to follow me for the rest of my life.”

Faber had asked others to break into the accounts of more than 50 women and personally hacked into more than two dozen, the judge said.

Faber pleaded guilty in February to computer intrusion causing damage and aggravated identity theft. Fish pleaded guilty to the same crimes — then, while awaiting sentencing, fabricated self-serv

ing letters on his behalf to the judge in the names of his mother grandparents, priest and an aide to Rep. Elise Stefanik.

In a sentencing recommendation to the judge, federal prosecutors said Faber tried to minimize his involvement in the crimes by claiming that Fish accessed more computer accounts than he did. But they said Faber “knew full well the extensive measures Fish took to crack into the accounts of his victims.”

Faber boasted to Fish that he had “good stuff ” — illicit photos and images — to trade from 30 female victims, stated the memo from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rosenthal and Deputy Chief Michael Stawasz from the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.

“Before he was caught, the defendant had no intention to stop this practice,” the memo said. “In his own words, ‘(k)eep sending and I’ll keep making (demeaning collages with stolen pictures) ... I like doing em haha.’”

On Thursday, the judge told Faber his text messages were vile.

“You know how disgusting they are — and so do I,” she said.

The judge rejected Faber’s request to report to prison at a later date.