Kernell, who is the son of Tennessee Representative Mike Kernell, was a 20-year-old economics student at the University of Tennessee when he hacked into Palin’s personal Yahoo email account.
He was able to hack into Palin's email account by using the webmail system's password reset function. He answered a series of security questions by mining information about Palin from public documents. Once the password had been reset, he was able to read Palin's emails and take screenshots of the contents. He also posted the information, including the passwords, to a public website.
Earlier this year, Kernell was found guilty by a federal jury in Knoxville, Tenn., after a week-long trial. He was convicted on one count of unauthorized access to obtain information from a computer, and one count of obstructing justice. He escaped a conviction for wire fraud, and the judge declared a mistrial on the charge of identity theft after the jury found itself unable to reach a verdict.
Kernell was facing a maximum of 20 years in jail; prosecutors had sought an 18-month prison sentence. Instead, US District Judge Thomas W. Phillips sentenced Kernell to one year and one day in a halfway house and three years of probation.