Who is Graham Ivan Clark? Florida teen who targeted Elon Musk, Barack Obama in Twitter hack jailed for 3 years
TAMPA, FLORIDA: The teenage hacker accused of being the mastermind behind a breach last year of high-profile Twitter accounts pleaded guilty on Tuesday, March 16, in a Florida court, agreeing to serve three years in juvenile prison.
Graham Ivan Clark, 18, faced severe charges after he hacked the Twitter accounts of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, former president Barack Obama and other celebrities. Under Clark’s access, the accounts tweeted messages soliciting Bitcoin, promising to double the money of anyone who sent cryptocurrency. The scheme profited Bitcoin worth more than $117,000 before it was shut down. This breach, the biggest in Twitter history, compromised other celebrity accounts as well including President Joe Biden, Kanye West, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Floyd Mayweather and Kim Kardashian. Clark, who appeared in court on March 16 via videoconference, pleaded guilty to the 30 charges against him. Clark will be serving three years in juvenile prison followed by three years of probation. He also agreed not to use computers without permission or supervision from law enforcement. If he violates the terms of the deal, he could face 10 years in an adult prison.
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Clark has already faced 229 days of time served since his arrest last summer. As part of the deal, Clark is also being sentenced as a “youthful offender,” which shortened his prison time and also brings the possibility that he can serve some of his sentences at a boot camp. In July 2020, Clark was held in a Tampa jail in lieu of a $750,000 bail and turned 18 behind bars. Clark and his attorney said he has turned the money over to officials for purposes of restitution.
At a hearing, Clark's attorney David Weisbrod said he would need time to determine whether to accept a plea deal offered by prosecutors, but did not reveal the terms of the proposed deal, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The Florida teen was accused of conspiring with Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida, and Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, UK, were also charged for their alleged roles in the hack in California federal court.
Clark grew up in Tampa and found ways to trick players of the video game Minecraft. He then started selling and swapping rare social media user names on the forum OGUsers, where he connected with other hackers who said they participated in the Twitter breach.
Twitter declined to comment on Clark’s plea deal. “We haven’t built a juvenile system for young hackers but we should be thinking about how we deal with this in a more systematic, compassionate fashion,” said Brian Klein, a defense attorney at Waymaker who represents people accused of hacking crimes. “A lot of these young people view these things as pranks rather than appreciating the consequences of their actions.”