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Cyber attack on the courthouse

He attacked a county court’s email system to stop a hearing, and the email servers of his victims’ law firm. He is serving the sentence now.

12 December 2024 · Guilty plea

He pleaded guilty to two felonies, and a judge ordered him into counselling

William Easton Horner pleaded guilty to two fourth-degree feloniesattempted retaliation (R.C. 2923.02 / 2921.05) and disrupting public service (R.C. 2909.04(B)) — and to two counts of telecommunications harassment (R.C. 2917.21(A)(7)), first-degree misdemeanours. A third count, of retaliation, was dismissed.

He was sentenced to five years of community control, sixty days in the county jail, a $12,000 fine, restitution, a no-contact order covering his victims, and monthly psychological counselling. A prison term of seventeen months remains suspended over him.

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas · Judge Timothy J. McGinty · State of Ohio v. Horner, No. CR-23-680296-A

See also. The pattern of filings behind all of this is set out in the chronology.

18 December 2024 · Restitution ruling

The judge called them revenge crimes

Ordering him to pay his ex-wife's law firm, the sentencing judge wrote:

"The victim's law firm was most definitely harmed by the defendant's revenge crimes and is entitled to full restitution for its out of pocket expenses caused by the defendant's purposeful email attack as well as expenses related to the preparation for the expected electronic assault after the domestic relations court had been electronically assaulted."

The same ruling limited what the firm could recover, holding it was not entitled to payment for its lawyers' or staff time.

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas · Judge Timothy J. McGinty · No. CR-23-680296-A

1 September 2022 · Date of offence

He attacked the courthouse email system on the day of her hearing

The recorded date of offence is the day his ex-wife's protection order hearing was scheduled. He was indicted on 2 November 2022 and reindicted on 18 April 2023 on those counts plus two more.

By his own published account, he launched a self-described "whitehat 'email bomb' DOS attack on the Cuyahoga County Courthouse" to stop the hearing going ahead. He wrote it up himself. That account was filed in court as an exhibit.

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas · Nos. CR-22-675557 and CR-23-680296-A

See also. The hearing he was trying to stop produced a five-year protection order. His victims’ law firm and the Cleveland Clinic each obtained protection orders of their own.

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