Hacker Guccifer All Set To Be Extradited To US to Serve Sentence

Marcel Lehel, a 42-year-old hacker better known by his pseudonym “Guccifer,” achieved notoriety when he released an email with images of paintings by former President George W. Bush, including a self-portrait in a bathtub. He also hacked and published emails of celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Steve Martin and Mariel Hemingway

Also released were emails between former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Corina Cretu, a Romanian member of European Parliament, prompting Powell to deny that the two had had an affair.

Perhaps most notably, Lehel was also the first source to uncover Hillary Clinton’s improper use of a private email account while she was Secretary of State, which the FBI is investigating as a potential danger to national security.

Lehel was indicted by the Department of Justice in 2014 on charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer, cyberstalking, aggravated identity theft and obstruction of justice.

Lehel’s hacking spree went on from 2010 to early 2014 and that included over 100 victims across Romania and the US.

Interestingly, Lehel wasn’t a trained IT professional, he was working as a taxi driver at the time of his arrest.

For the above hacks of US officials, Lehel was sentenced to 52 months in a US prison in September 2016. But as part of the extradition accord signed with Romanian authorities, Lehel was sent back to Romania to finish the rest of his Romanian prison sentence.

In both 2017 and 2018, Lehel expressed his desire to serve the US sentence in a Romanian jail and filed a legal case to prevent his second extradition to the US.

In September 2018, an appeals court in Alba Iulia, Romania, ruled in favor of his second extradition. The court ruled for Lehel’s immediate extradition either when he finished his seven-year sentence, or whenever he’d be released on parole.

The Court of Appeals (CA) Alba Iulia on Monday admitted the demand of extradition to the United States of America of the hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, alias ‘Guccifer’ or ‘Little Smoke’ his extradition being postponed until he is released on parole or after the serving of the 7-year sentence he has in Romania, reads the website of the said CA.

‘It decides the extradition of the Romanian citizen – extraditable person Lazar Marcel Lehel with a view to executing 52-month jail with deduction of the period already executed in custody from 01.09.2016 till 12.10.2016, as applied through the criminal sentence issued on 01.09.2016 by the US Court – East Virginia District – Alexandria Section (…) for the crimes of: – unauthorized access to a protected computerized system (…); qualified identity theft (…),’ the solution says.

The court has decided to postpone the handing over of the extraditable person until he is released on parole or until he executes his 7-year sentence.

Guccifer, has been released this week from a Romanian prison and he is now eligible for the second extradition to the US to serve a 52-month prison sentence for hacking multiple US government officials between 2012 and 2014.

Spokespersons for the Romanian Ministry of Justice and the Alba Iulia Appeals Court did not respond to a request for comment on the exact date of Lehel’s second extradition.