ALBANY – A federal judge sentenced convicted fraudster Michael P. Fish to 9 ¼ years in prison on Friday for hacking into the accounts of female students at SUNY Plattsburgh, stealing their photos and selling them on the Internet.
Fish, 26, learned his legal fate more than a year later than he was initially scheduled to be sentenced for his guilty pleas to identity theft, computer intrusion causing damage, and possession of child pornography.
On Dec. 31, 2020, the Times Union reported that Fish allegedly fabricated more than a dozen self-serving character letters in whole or part to U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino under the names of, among others, his mother, a local priest and a district director for U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Fish still faces federal obstruction of justice charges for the alleged letters.
In 2020, Fish admitted that between 2016 and 2019, when he attended SUNY Plattsburgh and later attended Albany Law School, he hacked into the accounts of female students in SUNY Plattsburgh school computer network. He made new passwords, broke into the social media accounts of female students, accessed their personal information — and then downloaded sexually explicit and embarrassing photos stored in other accounts. Fish, in turn, traded the stolen photos on the Internet. The victims were identified in the photos.
Prosecutors for U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said Fish tried to “embarrass, shame and dehumanize” the female students.
Last August, D’Agostino sentenced Fish’s accomplice Nicholas Faber to three years in prison for computer intrusion causing damage and aggravated identity theft.
