Hacker Who Stole Nude Self-Portraits of George W Bush Jailed for Four Years

A 40-year-old Romanian man called Marcel Lazăr Lehe - better known by his hacker handle Guccifer - has been sentenced to four years in jail by a court in Romania for breaking into email accounts related to George W Bush, and leaking intimate nude self-portraits of the former US president.

As well as breaching email accounts associated with the Bush family, Guccifer broke into the email accounts of high profile entertainment figures and the head of the Romanian secret service.

In January the 40-year-old taxi driver was arrested at his home in the Romanian city of Arad. The Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) who captured Guccifer worked in conjunction with the US authorities to identify him.

He could now be facing a total of seven years in jail as a previously suspended three-year jail term could be invoked.

"The aggrieved parties Corina Cretu and George Cristian Maior did not turn into civil claimants ... The defendant is obliged to pay 11,000 lei ($3,400)in legal fees to the state," the Bucharest court said on its website. It did not publish any details on his actions and said the sentence could be appealed.

The hacker has claimed his other victims include Tina Brown, the former editor of The New Yorker magazine; "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes; journalist Carl Bernstein and venture capitalist John Doerr.

Nude self portraits

In February 2013, Guccifer posted a series of images online which had been stolen from an AOL email account belonging to George W Bush's sister, Dorothy Bush Koch.

The images where sent to Koch by Bush and were of paintings he had painted himself, including two naked self portraits of Bush, one in the shower and one in the bath.

As well as publishing the images online, Guccifer published a picture of Koch's father, George HW Bush in hospital.

Confidential data

Among the data obtained by the hacker was a confidential list from October 2012 containing the names, addresses, mobile phone numbers and emails of dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings and children.

Guccifer also breached the email accounts of Romanian politician Corina Cretu who Guccifer accused of having an affair with Powell, and George Maior, the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).

Guccifer later hacked into the website of former US secretary of state Colin Powell and accessed years worth of correspondence from another AOL account. It was emails and photos from this account which Guccifer leaked in support of his an affair taking place between Powell and Cretu.

Powell denied the affair ever happened.

Gufficer also gained access to the email account of a former aide to president Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal.

He distributed private memos sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton involving recent events in Libya, including the 11 September, 2012 Benghazi attack.