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Former NASA contractor who hacked computers to retrieve nude photos sentenced to 5 years

by in News

A former NASA contractor who authorities said hacked into women’s computers, then threatened to publish on the internet nude photos and information he had retrieved unless they sent him more explicit photos, has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison.

Richard Gregory Bauer, 28, a resident of the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of Los Angeles, was sentenced Monday, Feb. 25, by U.S. District Judge John F. Walter, who imposed a 57-month sentence.

Bauer pleaded guilty in October to federal charges of stalking, computer hacking and aggravated identity theft, according to a release from the Central District of California U.S. Attorney’s office.

The victims included “family, friends, high school and college acquaintances, co-workers and friends of friends,” federal prosecutors said. Walter called the crimes “disgusting and harmful.”

Bauer’s actions “represent a long-running course of behavior, not a one-off event, or for that matter a brief spree,” prosecutors said in their sentencing memorandum.

In his September 2018 indictment, prosecutors said Bauer had downloaded nude photos of six of the seven women he stalked and sent them attached to emails that threatened publication, authorities said.

Writing under an alias, he told the women he would keep the hacked pictures off the web — if they took more pictures of themselves undressed and sent those to him.

“I would hate for these to get out somewhere … so when can i get a new one? I have mannnnnny more,” the indictment filed in Los Angeles federal court claimed Bauer wrote to one of the women in an email that included a topless picture of her.

Bauer did contact some of the victims first by using his real name, sending them a questionnaire as a project for a “human societies class” he falsely claimed he was taking, prosecutors said.

That was a ploy to get information to reset online passwords, such as the name of a first pet, or the city where a victim’s parents first met.

In a couple of cases he also asked victims to help him test some software he had sent them; but the women were actually installing malware that would allow him to hack their computers, the indictment said.

The scheme started in early 2015 and continued through early 2018, prosecutors said.

Bauer was a contractor at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, and his previous homes were in Palmdale and Lancaster, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Los Angeles office.

The case was investigated by NASA’s Office of Inspector General.