Woman Faces Over 9 Years in Prison for Hacking Selena Gomez's Email

College student Susan Atrach has been charged with 11 felonies for the alleged hack. She's expected to be arraigned before the end of August.

July 16, 2018

A New Jersey college student could spend nearly a decade behind bars for allegedly hacking Selena Gomez’s email.

According to the Los Angeles Times, 21-year-old Susan Atrach was charged this week with 11 felonies: five counts of identity theft, five counts of accessing and using computer data to commit fraud, and one count of accessing computer data without permission. If convicted of all charges, Atrach could be sentenced to nine years and eight months in state prison.

Prosecutors say the suspect accessed Gomez’s iCloud and Yahoo accounts from June 2015 to February 2016, and eventually shared the signer’s private media online. Sources with knowledge of the investigation told the Times that Atrach reset Gomez’s passwords by successfully answering security questions, all of which were based on information that could be found online.

According to a L.A. District Attorney’s Office press release, Atrach’s arraignment is expected on or before Aug. 27. Prosecutors have requested her bail be set at $250,000.

Gomez was the victim of another computer hacking in 2017, when someone accessed her Instagram account and posted nude photos of her former boyfriend Justin Bieber. The pictures were reportedly taken back in 2015 during the Canadian's singers' trip to Bora Bora.

“My first thing was like…how can they do this? Like, I feel super violated,” he told Access Hollywood, shortly after the photos surfaced in 2015. “Like, I feel like I can't step outside and feel like I can go outside naked. Like, you should feel comfortable in your own space… especially that far away.”