Hector Xavier Monsegur is now free, thanks to the very people who have arrested him. The Anonymous hacker known as "Sabu" will be freed following his sentencing on Tuesday. According to The Associated Press, Monsegur's jail sentence will be considered time served. Prior to the sentencing, the hacker has spent a total of seven months in jail following his arrest in 2011.
Court papers have said that Monsegur build his career as a hacker at the confines of his apartment in Manhattan in the early 2000s, and had been stealing credit card information then to use it to pay his own bills or sell them for money. Monsegur later joined forces with the fabled Anonymous group because, according to him in a 2011 online magazine interview, he was upset over the arrest of the platinum blonde-haired hacker and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Subsequently, Monsegur, under the Sabu alias has led an Anonymous splinter group called Lulz Security, or LulzSec, and has headed the hacking of the computer systems of Fox Television, Nintendo, PayPal and other businesses to steal confidential information, among other things.
Monsegur was seized by police at his home the summer of that year, and immediately agreed to cooperate with authorities, prosecutors have said.
AP said Monsegur's cooperation with authorities could have been the hacker's bargaining chip for freedom. According to court papers, prosecutors have requested the judge ahead of Monsegur's sentencing to give him a more lenient punishment. The prosecutors also highlighted in court papers the fact that Monsegur had somewhat served his country by helping to thwart at least 300 separate hacks among other things, which prevented millions of dollars in losses in the process.
"(Under their direction, he )convinced LulzSec members to provide him digital evidence of the hacking activities" and "asked seemingly innocuous questions that ... could be used to pinpoint their exact locations and identities," court papers said.
It is not known nor mentioned when Monsegur will be released from custody following his conviction Tuesday.
