A Tampa Bay teenager managed to take control of some very well-known Twitter accounts last year.  He used the access to do something pretty genius but a whole lot illegal; solicit more than $100,000 in bitcoin. 

He pled guilty to a couple crimes Tuesday and will be going to prison for three years because of it. 

Graham Ivan Clark masterminded a pretty crazy social media hack of huge celebrities, politicians and brands.  In his cross hairs was former President Barack Obama, current President Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, Apple and Uber. 

That’s a pretty impressive list. 

The plea deal he agreed to will allow him to be sentenced as a “youthful offender” even though he is currently 18-years old.  He avoided a minimum of 10 years behind bars. 

The man who convicted him, Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren feels pretty good he took this criminal down. “Graham Clark needs to be held accountable for that crime, and other potential scammers out there need to see the consequences.

“In this case, we’ve been able to deliver those consequences while recognizing that our goal with any child, whenever possible, is to have them learn their lesson without destroying their future.”

Followers of those aforementioned celebrities and brands some some strange tweets last summer. 

Here’s one from Biden. “I am giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back doubled! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes … Enjoy!”

Similar messages came from other big name accounts.  He would use the fake tweets to get people to send bitcoin to accounts he owned. 

Again, a scam that couldn’t only be executed by a bona fide genius, but highly illegal. 

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