Another hacker going by the name of Guccifer 2.0 who has come out to say he was the one behind the Democratic Party hacks recently, is said to have no connection to Marcel Guccifer Lazar. Lazar, 44, is believed to have infiltrated the e-mail and social media accounts of some 100 people, including important political figures.
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His public defender, Shannon Quill, asked for a more lenient sentence of 36 months, arguing he did not profit from the crimes.
But Lazar took one journey too far when he found himself in the uncharted waters of the home-based email server that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used to carry out official work and things like the booking of private jets.
US intelligence officials and cyber security experts believe Guccifer 2.0 is a front for Russian intelligence services meant to spread confusion about the hacks against the Democratic Party.
He also hacked into the email account of Clinton friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal, publishing correspondence between the two and revealing Clinton’s private email server that she used as secretary of state. The judge’s sentence of more than five years, reflects the seriousness of the charges against Lazar. In the interview, broadcast in May following his extradition, he made an unsubstantiated claim that he accessed Clinton’s private email server and downloaded some material.
Marcel Lazar pictured after his arrest in Romania in 2014. They cited the case of Guccifer 2.0, an individual or group of hackers whom US officials say is tied to Russian intelligence services and who claimed credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee earlier this year.
A taxi driver with a high school education, Lazar had no formal computer training and little hacking expertise.
The plea deal allows for the possibility that Lazar could serve some of his sentence in Romania. Both the Clinton campaign and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have dismissed his assertion, saying there is no evidence of this.
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Lazar caused a stir when he spoke to NBC News from a maximum security prison in Bucharest prior to his extradition.
