TAMPA, Fla. _ An online bail hearing in the case against a Tampa teenager accused of hacking prominent Twitter accounts was interrupted Wednesday by rap music, shrieks and pornography.
The interruptions grew so frequent _ culminating in a user sharing their screen in order to take over the meeting with pornographic video _ that Hillsborough Circuit Judge Christopher C. Nash ended the Zoom hearing temporarily.
The purpose of the hearing was to consider reducing the bail for Graham Ivan Clark, the 17-year-old accused of hacking the Twitter accounts of internationally famous people and companies, and sending out tweets from their accounts soliciting payments of bitcoin. Clark, a former Gaither High School student, has remained in jail since his Friday arrest, held on $725,000 bail, a number his attorney previously described as "hyperbolic."
Hoping a brief pause would filter out the interrupters, Nash reopened the meeting. But users who disguised their names as CNN and BBC News resumed their interruptions.
Nash was ultimately able to rule, declining to lower the bail amount. He did, however, remove a requirement that Clark prove the legitimacy of his assets. Lawyers have said he has $3 million in bitcoin under his control.
Clark's attorney, Tampa lawyer David Weisbrod, argued it was not "reasonable" to set bail at six times the amount Clark is accused of stealing in the case.
Prosecutors wanted him held on $30 million bail, $1 million for each charge Clark faces. Weisbrod called that "hyperbolic" at Clark's first court appearance Saturday. Prosecutors said there is nothing hyperbolic about the request because of the danger Clark poses to society if he gets access to a computer.
They want Clark to prove the money he puts up for bail was obtained legitimately rather than through criminal activity.
