Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond pleads guilty

Jeremy Hammond (aka “Anarchaos”), the Anonymous hacker that was charged last year with crimes relating to the December 2011 hack of Strategic Forecasting (“Stratfor”) and public dissemination of information obtained through this hack, has pleaded guilty on Tuesday.

“This non-cooperating plea agreement frees me to tell the world what I did and why, without exposing any tactics or information to the government and without jeopardizing the lives and well-being of other activists on and offline,” wrote the 28-year-old in the wake of his plea.

“Now that I have pleaded guilty it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites. Those others included military and police equipment suppliers, private intelligence and information security firms, and law enforcement agencies. I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors. I did what I believe is right.”

According to the plea agreement, he can receive a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, three years’ supervised release, a fine no greater than $250,000, and has agreed to make restitution in an amount that will not exceed $2.5 million. All other open counts (contained in the plea agreement) will be dismissed by the Government.

Hammond is scheduled to be sentenced in September.