Owen Walker - the New Zealand teenager who admitted to hacking into the School of Engineering and Applied Science's server in February 2006 - was fined more than $11,000 Tuesday in a New Zealand court, according to The Associated Press.
Walker, 18, who is better known online as AKILL, had earlier pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but was spared a conviction because he agreed to work with New Zealand police to solve computer crimes.
According to the AP, Walker is also associated with a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions of dollars from bank accounts.
He conspired with Engineering senior Ryan Goldstein to hack into the SEAS system.
Goldstein, 21, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting another person to gain unauthorized access to a protected computer in March and is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 5. He could face up to six months in prison.
His lawyer, Ronald Levine, said that Walker's involvement and penalty should help Goldstein procure a light sentence.
"Mr. Goldstein is charged with a misdemeanor. The far more culpable person, Mr. Walker, was fined in New Zealand," Levine wrote in an e-mail. "We would hope that the Court will take this into account."
Walker and Goldstein are among eight people who have been indicted in an international FBI investigation of hackers who, among other things, attempt to control computers in efforts to manipulate stock trades and crash industry computers.
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