“Guccifer,” the computer hacker who revealed Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, has been sent to his native Romania on Tuesday to finish serving time for a previous conviction before resuming a prison sentence in the United States.
Marcel Lazar, better known as the alias “Guccifer,” arrived in Bucharest and was taken to a prison in Rahova, a spokesperson for the country’s National Administration of Penitentiaries told News.ro. He’ll be quarantined for 21 days before officials determine whether he’ll be transferred and to where.
Lazar was already serving a 7-year prison sentence in Romanian when he was charged by U.S. prosecutors in 2014 with multiple felonies related to a cybercrime spree that targeted multiple U.S. government insiders, including longtime Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
He leaked the contents of certain victims’ email accounts to the media, in turn revealing Mrs. Clinton used a nongovernment email account as secretary of state to communicate with Mr. Blumenthal and spurring an FBI probe centered around her handling of classified material.
Lazar was extradited from his Romanian jail cell to the U.S. in April 2016 and later pleaded guilty to two charges related to hacking American targets. He was sentenced last month by U.S. District Court Judge James Cacheris to 52 months in federal prison, but he was told he’d first have to finish serving time for his previous conviction back home.
Romanian’s Justice Ministry asked Judge Cacheris to have Lazar deported as soon as possible, and promised to conditionally release the hacker in 2018 so he could be returned to the U.S. and start serving time stateside.
Writing to Fox News from his cell in Virginia last month, Lazar described Romania’s decision as a “silly, hasty move,” and apologized for not succeeding with his plan to “expose the Illuminati” by hacking their emails.
“Hillary Rodham Diane Clinton is one of the high priests, a goddess of this ocult, (sic) satanic, shadow group. One must see their evil and profoundly corrupt motive to understand what I am talking about,” he wrote.
“Though I know I invested a great deal of time and effort trying to expose the crimes of the Rockefellers, the Bush Klan (sic) the Clinton, and many others, maybe my skills were NOT matching my faith,” Lazar added. “So I apologize in front of the unknown soldiers who struggle to take this fight against these monsters to a glorious end. Many of ’em are risking their lives, while doing this behind the computer screens, from inside or outside the system.”
When interrogated by the FBI, Lazar claimed it only took him around 20 minutes to gain access to Mr. Blumenthal’s email account by correctly answering his security questions. Once inside, he copied the contents of certain emails and forwarded them to various media outlets, including correspondence between Mr. Blumenthal and then-Secretary of State Clinton.
The FBI investigated Mrs. Clinton’s use of that private email server to conduct official business, but decided earlier this year against filing charges against the current Democratic nominee for president.
In Romania, Lazar was convicted of compromising the email accounts of various politicians and celebrities, including intelligence director George Maior and MEP Corina Cretu. Under the arrangement reached between the U.S. and Romanian, he’ll likely return to the U.S. in two years and serve four years behind bars here before being extradited once again.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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