Tennessee Man Pleads Guilty to Hacking Supreme Court System (1)

A Tennessee man has pleaded guilty to computer fraud after prosecutors said he stole credentials to access the Supreme Court’s electronic filing system and posted screenshots to an Instagram account.

Nicholas Moore, 24, appearing by video, made his plea to the misdemeanor charge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday morning. He responded “yes” when asked by Judge Beryl Howell, who presided over the arraignment, if he engaged in various conduct alleged by the government.

Moore admitted that he accessed the Supreme Court’s online filing system on 25 days in a roughly two-month span, from August to October 2023, by using the stolen credentials of an authorized user, referred to by the initials GS.

In doing so, he accessed GS’ personally identifying information, including full name and date of birth, and posted screenshots of GS’ Supreme Court homepage on an Instagram account under the handle “@ihackedthegovernment,” according to a statement from the Washington US attorney’s office, posted Friday.

The screenshots also revealed a list of all of GS’ “current and past electronic filing records,” the statement said.

Moore also agreed he used others’ stolen credentials to access electronic portals for AmeriCorps and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and similarly posted screenshots on Instagram containing the authorized users’ personal information.

Moore used the credentials of a US Marine Corps veteran to breach the VA portal and obtained “highly sensitive health information,” including prescriptions and blood type, the statement said.

The offenses carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $100,000 fine under the plea agreement. However, under the guidelines, Moore is estimated to receive up to six months in prison, a year of supervisory release, and a $20,000 fine, Howell said.

The charges follow separate attacks on the judiciary’s electronic filing system. The federal judiciary revealed last year that the federal courts’ case management system, which is separate from the Supreme Court’s, had suffered a cyberattack.

The attack exploited vulnerabilities targeted in an earlier breach in 2020. Russian government hackers lurked for years in the judiciary’s records system.

The breach prompted federal trial courts to take new measures to restrict electronic access to sealed documents.

Moore has no criminal history, according to Howell. Moore said at the hearing he didn’t graduate high school. His attorney, Washington public defender Eugene Ohm, said in a court filing that Moore has “mental health disabilities that have debilitated him since his childhood.”

Howell said she planned to hold his sentencing in April.

The case is USA v. Moore, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cr-00003, arraignment held 1/16/26