Dem lawmaker's son charged in Palin hack

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday they had indicted a Tennessee man for allegedly hacking into vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail account.

David Kernell, 20, was identified by the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel as the son of Tennessee state Rep. Mike Kernell, a Democrat representing a Memphis district.

Kernell was charged with one count of accessing the Alaska governor's account without authorization and appeared Wednesday for arraignment before a federal magistrate in Knoxville, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a written statement.

The indictment, handed down by a grand jury Tuesday, came after a high-profile incident in which the contents of the Palin account began appearing on the Internet.

"According to the indictment, Kernell posted screenshots of the e-mails and other personal information to a public Web site," the statement said.

The News-Sentinel said the elder Kernell told reporters last month that he was aware that his son, a student at the University of Tennessee, was being named by various bloggers as the likely culprit in the hacking of Palin's e-mail account.