COVINGTON, Ky., Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A Kentucky man has been sentenced to five months in prison and two years on probation for altering conservative posts made on the website SodaHead.com.
Michael Pullen, 38, a hacker from Dry Ridge, was convicted for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and will begin his sentence on Oct. 21, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Prosecutors said Pullen broke into people's accounts on SodaHead.com, which is a social networking site, and changed posts he thought were racist or homophobic.
"It was all just meant to be funny," Pullen said. "I never meant to hurt, in any way, anybody. It was just kind of tweaking these folks -- popping their balloons, so to speak."
Dennis C. Alerding, Pullen's public defender, called the case "an enormous waste of taxpayer money."
"If what they wanted to do was to convince my client to never, never do it again ... and punish him, they could have just as easily suspended his driver's license for a year and fined him $1,000," Alerding said, adding that his bill to taxpayers for representing Pullen will be at least $14,000.
