Jacksonville man sentenced for attempting to hack ATMs

A Jacksonville man arrested in 2010 for planning to hack a number of ATMs using a prepaid card registered to “Barack Obama” has been sentenced to more than three years in prison, according to a press release from the FBI.

Thor Alexander Morris, 20, of Jacksonville, was sentenced Monday to 37 months in federal prison without parole by U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore for fraud and related activity in connection with computers.

Morris was arrested on April 22, 2010, and indicted in July of that year for knowingly and with the intent to defraud attempting to access a protected automated teller machine without authorization to obtain money, according to the release.

Morris had traveled to Houston on the day he was arrested with a plan to steal more than $200,000 from 35 ATMs by reprogramming them to issue $20 for every $1 requested, according to the release.

Morris was met at the airport by the man with whom he was plotting and to whom he had bragged about previously compromising several ATMs on the East Coast. The man, who Morris had met online, was actually an undercover agent

The agent took Morris to purchase a prepaid cash card, which Morris registered under the name “Barack Obama” and listed the address 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C, according to archived media reports citing the affidavit in his arrest. The agent then drove Morris to an ATM, where Morris tried unsuccessfully to reprogram the machine. After a second attempt, the FBI arrested him without incident, according to the affidavit. During his arrest interview, Morris told agents that he had never really hacked an ATM and had made up the story to impress his Internet partner after watching a youtube.com video about reprogramming the machines, according to the affidavit.

The FBI says Morris is out on bond pending order to surrender to a Board of Prisons facility to be designated in the near future. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Suzanne Elmilady and Craig Faezel prosecuted the case.