Ohio Anonymous hacker in court for Utah police website hacks

Ohio resident John Anthony Borell III is being tried today for two counts of felony computer intrusion after hacking into Utah law enforcement websites in January.

Borell was recently arrested after Federal Bureau of Investigations agents found him using Twitter and Internet Relay Chat logs. The investigation was spurred by two tips sent in to tips.fbi.gov and ic3.gov that stated Borell was a member of hacking collective Anonymous. It also provided a number of pseudonyms he was associated with including Kahuna, TehTiger, and anonJB.

The indictment states that Borell used the SQL Injection technique to access and take down the websites utahchiefs.org and slcpd.com (Salt Lake City Police Department). The FBI found Twitter direct messages and tweets in which Borell admitted to taking down the websites. Further proof of his identity was found when the FBI looked through chat logs in IRC. There, Borell explained that his father was an attorney and was advising him against talking to the FBI. Agents searched Ohio-based attorneys and found two local attorneys named “John Anthony Borell Esq.”

He had also been in contact with Sabu, Anonymous’s once bullhorn, turned FBI informant.

Borell hacked these websites in order to make a statement about copyright infringement and the current Megaupload case. After hacking utahchiefs.org, Borell tweeted, “Whoever removed the Megaupload image from http://utahchiefs.org and replaced it with their nick when I hacked it for a purpose. Fuck OFF.”

According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, Borell has pleaded not guilty to the two charges. But a guilty conviction could put him in jail for 20 years, and hit him with a fine of $500,000. A trial is tentatively scheduled for June 25.