Stolen Explicit Videos Of Women Lead To Jail For Monmouth Man

FREEHOLD, NJ — A Monmouth County man who posted sexually explicit videos and photos online of two women after and admitted hacking more than 1,000 private cloud-based accounts has been sentenced to five years in prison, the state attorney general's office announced Thursday.

Patrick S. Farrell, 37, of Clarksburg in Millstone Township, was sentenced Thursday to five years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Richard W. English in Monmouth County. Farrell pleaded guilty on Dec. 7, 2018 to a second-degree charge of computer theft. Farrell admitted he breached more than 1,000 private email accounts during a four-year period, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said.

The investigation revealed that between October 2015 and April 2016, Farrell hacked into the cloud-based storage accounts of two women and, in each case, stole a sexually explicit video of the victim as well as one or more nude photos of the victim.

He did not know either victim and neither woman consented to him accessing her account, Grewal's office said.

In one case, he posted the stolen video on a video-sharing website and posted four nude photos of the victim on another multimedia sharing website. In the other case, he posted the sexually explicit video and a nude photo on the victim’s own social media account.

Prosecutors noted at sentencing that Farrell admitted to investigators that he breached over one thousand private email accounts during a four-year period, stealing private photos and other personal information.

"Farrell violated the privacy of his two victims in a devastating way, leaving them fearful and insecure because their most intimate moments were exposed to family members, friends and total strangers," Grewal said. "Beyond the incalculable emotional harm he inflicted, Farrell’s breaches left the information in the victims’ online accounts vulnerable to exploitation by other cybercriminals."

"The crimes that Farrell committed were especially cruel and harmful to his victims," said Veronica Allende, director of the Division of Criminal Justice. "We will continue to deploy the expertise and technology needed to bring offenders like Farrell to justice. Meanwhile, we urge people to be vigilant on the internet and social media, and to carefully secure their online accounts, because there are many types of cybercriminal, ranging from sexual predators to tech-savvy thieves."

Deputy Attorneys General Remy and Huynh prosecuted Farrell under the supervision of Bureau Chief Julia S. Glass and Deputy Bureau Chief Jillian Carpenter of the Division of Criminal Justice Financial & Computer Crimes Bureau.

Grewal commended those attorneys, as well as the detectives and officers who conducted the investigation for the New Jersey State Police Troop C Criminal Investigations Office, Cyber Crimes Unit, and Digital Technology Investigations Unit, and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, New Brunswick Police Department, and Montclair State University Police Department.

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