Former Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys was found guilty of helping hackers break into the Los Angeles Times website and deface one of its headlines, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
Keys, 28, faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on January 20, 2016.
He was found criminally responsible for giving hackers with the group Anonymous log-in credentials for a computer at the Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other media outlets.
Keys had been fired from Tribune-Co. owned KTXL FOX 40 in October 2010. Two months later, he handed over the information Anonymous needed to hack its network.
He later went to work for Reuters, which dismissed him after he was charged with the crime.
Keys, who was indicted in 2013 by a grand jury in California, was found guilty on all three hacking-related charges.
In addition to possible prison time, he could also be sentenced to nine years of supervised release and a fine of $750,000.
Court documents include the log of an alleged online chat between Keys and an Anonymous member nicknamed “Sharpie,” who detailed accessing the Tribune server to change the LA Times story. “Sharpie” turned out to be “Sabu,” a former Anonymous member who notoriously became an FBI informant after his arrest.
The conviction was noted by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employe who is living in exile after leaking a massive cache of NSA documents.