Hacker Who Outed George W. Bush as a Painter Gets 4-Year Jail Sentence

Guccifer, the hacker handle of the former cab driver who revealed to the world that George W. Bush was spending a good portion of his post-retirement time painting portraits of friends’ pets, fellow world leaders, and tame self-portraits of himself showering, has been sentenced to four years in jail by a Romanian court.

Guccifer was arrested in January in Bucharest and could spend a total of seven years behind bars as he also carries a previous three-year suspended sentence.

Guccifer, whose real name is Marcel Lazar Lehel, gained instant, widespread fame after breaking into the email accounts of US and European leaders. He gained access to some of their accounts by guessing the answers to security questions using publicly available facts and information. Guccifer also broke into a private Yahoo email account of Romania’s secret service chief George Maior, which his agency said had been used before for academic correspondence. No mention of the hacker’s activities in the United States was made in court.

Besides revealing Bush’s affinity for painting and sparking a spirited debate about Bush’s choices of subject matter and technical skill level, Guccifer also leaked sensitive messages related to Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, George Tenet, and others.

Two of the George W. Bush self-portraits found by hacker Guccifier

First published by Eileen Kinsella in artnet news