Florida teen accused of Twitter hack pleads not guilty

The Florida teenager accused of being behind a major Twitter hack that resulted in several prominent accounts posting a bitcoin scam pleaded not guilty Tuesday on multiple counts of fraud, The Associated Press reported.

Graham Ivan Clark, 17, is facing 30 felony charges including organized fraud, communications fraud, identity theft and hacking, carrying potential penalties of more than $100,000. 

Tuesday’s hearing in Tampa reportedly took place via Zoom. Clark is scheduled for a bond hearing Wednesday, with bail set at $725,000.

He was arrested Friday.

Two others — U.K. resident Mason Shepard, 19, and Orlando, Fla., resident Nima Fazeli, 22, who go by the hacking aliases “Chaewon” and “Rolex” respectively — were also charged in helping carry out the hack. Both were charged in California.

The intrusion affected a number of prominent Twitter accounts, including those of former President Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Authorities say the defendants were able to reap more than $100,000 in bitcoin by posting messages on the hacked accounts asking followers to send funds.

Twitter later said the hackers obtained employee credentials, allowing them to target 130 accounts, tweeting from 45, accessing direct message inboxes of 36 and downloading data from seven.

The platform has said it has “significantly limited access to internal tools and systems” as it continued to make improvements stemming from the hacking incident.