Sarah Palin took the stand at a Knoxville courthouse today to testify in the email hacking case of 22-year-old David Kernell, a former University of Tennessee student who allegedly hacked into the former Alaska governor’s personal Yahoo! email account during the 2008 presidential campaign. As previously reported by Infosecurity, this testimony comes two days after her daughter, Bristol Palin, provided her account of the episode and the effect it had on both her and the Palin family.
According to AP reports of Palin’s testimony, the former vice presidential candidate said that the email account was her primary means of communicating with the rest of her family during the 2008 presidential campaign. Palin told the courtroom that she was in Michigan campaigning when she learned, from a television report, that her email account had been hacked.
Prosecutors in the Palin email hack case have brought four charges against Kernell, who is the son of a Democratic state legislator. They contend that it was more than just a harmless prank, and that the former college student intended to derail the Republican ticket’s campaigning in 2008 by publicizing any embarrassing information about Palin that could be collected from the emails.
If convicted, Kernell could face up to 50 years in prison. When asked about the potential punishment the accused hacker could face, including the likelihood of jail time, Palin told reporters outside the courthouse that the decision would lie with the judge. As for the severity of the charges being brought against the young man, and whether prosecutors may have gone a bit too far, Palin responded: “I don’t know, but I do think there should be consequences for bad behavior.”