Former State Department employee gets nearly 5 years in 'international sextortion campaign'
A former State Department employee was sentenced Monday to four years and nine months in what federal prosecutors called an “international sextortion campaign” operated from his computer at the U.S. Embassy in London.
They said Michael Ford, 36, tricked hundreds of women into providing him with their email and social media passwords, by pretending in phishing emails to be a member of Google’s nonexistent account deletion team. Then he used the passwords to steal sexually explicit photos from victims’ accounts.
Next he threatened a number of victims with exposure of their pictures unless they provided him with explicit photos of other women taken in locations such as changing rooms. Several times, prosecutors said, he followed through, according to the Associated Press and Reuters. The scheme played out between January 2013 and May 2015.
Ford pleaded guilty in December to one count of wire fraud and multiple counts of cyberstalking and computer hacking in the Atlanta case.
Supported by more than 30 friends and family members, Ford apologized in court on Monday and tearfully explained that he had felt belittled personally and professionally and was not thinking of his victims as real people, the AP article recounts.
“What I did was a low and cowardly act by a person who was desperate,” he told U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, explaining that he wanted to escape from his job without being a quitter.
The judge told Ford she was “utterly disgusted” by his conduct, but nonetheless gave him less time than the eight years sought by the government.
She also allowed him to begin serving his time in August, so he can be with his wife when she is expected to deliver the couple’s second child in July.
Attorney Benjamin Black Alper represents Ford. He told Reuters the sentence “recognizes the seriousness of Mr. Ford’s conduct, while at the same time acknowledging that he fully accepted responsibility for his actions and assisted the government in every way possible throughout his case.”
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