The Hunter Moore Case — Revenge Porn and Email Hacking

The Case

The Hunter Moore case is a United States federal criminal case involving nonconsensual pornography and computer hacking, centered on the website IsAnyoneUp.com, which between 2010 and 2012 published sexually explicit photos of individuals without their consent. Moore, who once branded himself "the most hated man on the internet," was ultimately convicted in federal court alongside a paid hacker who broke into victims' email accounts to harvest private images for the site.

The Crime

Hunter Edward Moore, born March 9, 1986, in Sacramento, California, launched IsAnyoneUp.com in 2010. The site invited users to submit nude photos of other people — often ex-partners — together with identifying information such as full names, social media links, and employers. The result was a public humiliation engine that monetized harassment and revenge.

When user submissions were not enough, Moore went further. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, Moore paid Charles Evens, a Studio City man, to hack into victims' Google email accounts and steal nude photographs. Evens accessed hundreds of accounts, transferring images directly to Moore, who then posted them on IsAnyoneUp.com without the subjects' knowledge or consent.

This was not a single act at a single location. The crimes occurred online, across state lines, from roughly 2010 through 2012, with the website operating out of California. The conduct combined revenge porn, unauthorized access to protected computers, and aggravated identity theft.

The Victims

The federal case did not center on one named victim but on a large group. Court documents and the DOJ described "hundreds of victims" whose email accounts Evens breached, in addition to those whose photos were submitted directly by third parties.

One of the most publicly identified victims is Kayla Laws, an aspiring actress whose private photos appeared on the site even though she said she had never shared them with anyone. Her mother, Charlotte Laws, would become the case's most determined investigator. Many victims reported severe emotional distress, harassment, doxxing, lost jobs, and lasting reputational harm — harms documented in extensive reporting, including by Courthouse News.

Investigation

Law enforcement initially struggled to act, in part because revenge porn was not yet specifically criminalized in many jurisdictions. The breakthrough came from outside the criminal justice system. Charlotte Laws began documenting victims' stories, gathering evidence that many images had been obtained through hacking rather than voluntary sharing — a crucial distinction that opened the door to federal computer-crime charges.

In 2012, the FBI opened an investigation based in significant part on the evidence Laws collected and provided. Agents traced image flows between hacked accounts and the website, eventually identifying Charles Evens as the hacker Moore had paid. A detailed account of Laws' work and the broader scheme is preserved in extensive documentary coverage of the case.

Moore shut down IsAnyoneUp.com in April 2012, but the federal investigation continued for nearly two more years.

Trial and Verdict

On January 23, 2014, a federal grand jury in the Central District of California indicted Moore and Evens on charges including conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft. Both eventually pleaded guilty rather than face trial.

In December 2015, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee sentenced Moore to 2 years and 6 months in federal prison, followed by supervised release, plus a fine and restitution to victims. Charles Evens was sentenced earlier in 2015 to approximately 2 years in federal prison for his role as the hacker who supplied stolen images. The convictions were among the first high-profile federal prosecutions tied to a revenge-porn operation in the United States.

Today

The Hunter Moore case is widely credited with accelerating legal reform around nonconsensual pornography. In the years that followed, dozens of U.S. states passed specific revenge-porn statutes, and federal lawmakers repeatedly proposed national legislation. Charlotte Laws' grassroots investigation has been cited as a model for how civilian-collected evidence can drive federal action when traditional channels stall.

The case returned to public attention in 2022 when Netflix released the three-part docuseries The Most Hated Man on the Internet, focusing on Laws' fight against Moore and on victims' experiences. Moore, who served his sentence and was released, remains a controversial public figure, while the case is now regularly referenced in discussions of online abuse, image-based sexual violence, and platform accountability.