Rochester Man Pleads Guilty to Stealing Nude Photographs of Dozens of Women

ALBANY, NEW YORK – Nicholas Faber, age 25, of Rochester, New York, pled guilty yesterday to computer fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with his hacking of online social media accounts and theft of nude images of dozens of female victims.

The announcement was made by Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas McQuaid; Acting United States Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon; Thomas F. Relford, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and State University of New York-Plattsburgh Police Chief Patrick Rascoe.

Faber pled guilty to one count of computer intrusion causing damage and one count of aggravated identity theft. 

Faber obtained his undergraduate degree from SUNY-Plattsburgh, graduating in 2017.

As part of his guilty plea, Faber admitted that from about 2017 to 2019, he worked with co-conspirator Michael Fish to access the school email accounts of dozens of female college students and then used information from those school email accounts to gain access to the victims’ social media accounts.  Faber then stole, and traded online with others, private nude photographs and movies stored in the victims’ social media accounts.  Also, as a result of Faber’s crimes, the university had to allocate money and staff to identifying compromised accounts, reviewing computer and server access logs, resetting passwords, and notifying students and parents.

United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino is scheduled to sentence Faber on June 9, 2021.   He faces at least 2 years and up to 12 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to 3 years of post-imprisonment supervised release.  A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.  Faber has also agreed to pay $35,430 in restitution to SUNY-Plattsburgh. 

Fish pled guilty to computer hacking, aggravated identity theft and child pornography offenses, and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 19, 2021.

This case was investigated by the FBI with substantial assistance from the SUNY-Plattsburgh Police Department.  Deputy Chief Michael Stawasz, from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Wayne A. Myers and Joshua R. Rosenthal, are prosecuting the case.