Man denies hacking charges

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CINCINNATI, June 21 (UPI) -- A Loveland, Ohio, man denied charges he threatened University of Pittsburgh officials on YouTube following a string of bomb threats.

Alexander Thomas Waterland, 24, was charged by the FBI Wednesday with making interstate threats and using a computer to make the threats.

FBI investigators believe Waterland posted a video under the guise of the hacker group Anonymous, threatening to leak personal data purportedly stolen from University at Pittsburgh unless Chancellor Mark Nordenberg issued an apology for failing to safeguard students through the bomb threats.

The six weeks of bomb threats during the spring semester prompted 150 evacuations, school officials said. The video, posted under the user name "AnonOperative13," went live five days after the last bomb threat.

School officials deny any personal information had been compromised.

"I never went to Pitt," Waterland told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "I don't know anybody that goes to Pitt. I don't know anybody who lives at Pitt."

Investigators traced the IP addresses from the videos to Waterland's apartment, his former workplace and his sister's apartment, the newspaper said. Months ago they seized a "WiFi device" from Express Scripts in Mason, Ohio, where Waterland worked.

When agents came to arrest Waterland, they say he had erased his desktop hard drive. However, they said found evidence on two other computers and a smart phone linking him to the YouTube account that posted the video, the newspaper reported.