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Artist News Legal
Madonna hacker jailed
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 10 July 2015
The Israeli man who hacked into the servers of Madonna and her business associates, and then sold demo tracks he accessed, which subsequently leaked forcing the singer to rush release the finished versions of said songs, has been jailed for fourteen months.
Adi Lederman, who it transpired was a former contestant on Israel’s version of ‘Pop Idol’, hacked into Madonna’s computers last year, having accessed passwords from the email accounts of her manager and musical director. It’s thought Lederman also accessed part of the singer’s work schedule in addition to the unfinished tracks from her album ‘Rebel Heart’.
He was arrested in January after an investigation suggested the hacking had originated in Israel and a private investigator hired by Madonna identified Lederman as the culprit. According to Reuters, the hacker’s lawyer said his client was just “a very fired-up and impassioned collector who went too far”, while citing health problems as a reason for leniency.
But the judge hearing the case said that the ease with which people like Lederman could access the private online files of third parties meant that sentences for hacking crimes needed to be severe, so to provide a strong deterrent for future would-be hackers.