Matt DeHart

DeHart was involved in online activities with a small group 'Anonymous Anti-Security' using the anonymity network Tor. As a part of these activities, DeHart ran a dead drop server named 'The Shell', on a computer in his bedroom. In September 2009, while monitoring the server, DeHart claims to have found an unencrypted folder containing hundreds of documents, including one detailing what looked like an FBI investigation into some particularly shady deeds by the CIA. He deleted the unencrypted folder from the server, but claims to have kept screenshots.[17] Shortly afterwards he claims to have found an encrypted version of the same file placed on another hidden server he believes was meant for WikiLeaks.

DeHart also claims "a document dropped onto his Tor server included details of FBI's investigation into CIA's possible role in the anthrax attack".[1]

January 22, 2010 he claims to have received a 'pretty detailed tip' from an associate who claims they were asked about the server by the FBI related to the file from a few months previously. At this point he shut down his server entirely and claims to have destroyed its hard drives.[3]

On January 22, 2010, the State of Indiana issued a search warrant for the DeHart's home in Newburgh in with the expressed purpose of searching for child pornography. The search was executed on January 25, seizing DeHart's computers and every data storage capable device that could be found. However, two encrypted IronKey USB devices with the sensitive server data were stored in the family gun case at the time and were overlooked. DeHart suggests the drive may have also contained documents from his former military unit. During the forensic analysis of the evidence seized, officers stated no child pornography was found. Details of investigation were reported in a Newsweek May 20, 2015 article by Bethany Horne "The Case Against Matt DeHart."[18]

Following these seizures, DeHart drove to Mexico where he mailed one drive to a contact in the United Kingdom and the other to a contact in the United States. Shortly after he would travel with his father to the Russian Embassy in Washington DC to seek asylum. The request would be denied, as would a subsequent request at the Venezuelan embassy.

In March 2010 DeHart applied for a US updated passport, which he got in less than a month. The following month, April 2010, DeHart moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada and started an eight-week French immersion course with ILSC-Montreal, staying at a home with other international students. DeHart planned to take a welding class at Holland College in Prince Edward Island, and his parents settled him into a studio apartment in Charlottetown, near Holland College campus. Whilst applying for a student visa at US border patrol office and after handing over his US passport, DeHart was arrested and taken into custody by FBI agents. US authorities contacted police in Charlottetown, asking for his studio apartment to be searched as part of a child pornography investigation. The material seized from DeHart's apartment was not sent to Tennessee but to the FBI's field office in Washington DC, U.S. Department of Justice.

Dehart was placed in a cell at Calais' Large International Avenue Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center for questioning. He claims he was drugged and describes the treatment he received as "torture". He was taken unconscious in an ambulance from the Penobscot County Jail, Bangor, ME to the Eastern Maine Medical Center before 1am on August 7. The records from the Eastern Maine Medical Center show he was diagnosed with eye pain and a psychotic break. He was released in "guarded" condition to unnamed officials and sent back to the jail. He was further interrogated by the FBI that same day while suffering from a psychotic break. The results of that interrogation are classified. He was questioned about his military unit, Russian Embassy, Anonymous, and WikiLeaks.

They started with people in my military unit, what the connection was between them, me and the Russian embassy; and then started asking me about connections between people in my military unit and Anonymous. They also asked about WikiLeaks

— DeHart

Later DeHart was transferred and kept in segregation at the Penobscot County jail in Bangor, Maine. Until his first hearing (Habeas Corpus hearing), he was incommunicado.

On August 9, 2010, DeHart was brought before U.S. Court Judge Margaret Kravchuk, who branded his court appearance that day as "odd". On August 18, 2010, DeHart signed consent forms (such as the permission for any FBI agent and "any Canadian law enforcement", to record his phone calls with his old military colleagues) and authorized agents to assume his online identity, giving the FBI his aliases, and passwords to his e-mail accounts. Among the accounts was a Hushmail account in the name of "Fawkes".

DeHart was then transferred to Tennessee, where he spent 21 months in jail, allegedly because of the child pornography charges against him. In May 2012, Judge Aleta Trauger, who was allowed to read classified documents about DeHart and heard the evidence on the child pornography charges, ordered DeHart released with a curfew monitored via an ankle bracelet, pending trial. Judge Trauger said in her ruling:

He thought that the search for child pornography was really a ruse to try to get the proof about his extracurricular national security issues. I found him very credible on that issue. Obviously, child pornography charges are serious offenses. I have learned several aspects of this case which, in the court's mind, indicate the weight of the evidence is not as firm as I thought it was

— Judge Trauger

The FBI claimed DeHart coerced two teenage boys in Tennessee into sending him nude photos and videos, and that he impersonated a teenage girl in order to acquire sexual images from teenage boys.[19]

From May 2012 until April 2013 Matt DeHart was on bond living with his parents in a rented duplex in Newburgh Indiana. His travel was restricted to the US Southern District of Indiana and was monitored with a curfew.

He was deported to the US on 1 March 2015[20] and handed over to FBI agents at the Peace Bridge border crossing. He was housed at the Niagara County Jail, Lockport, New York, then transferred to a Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) private jail in northeast Ohio at Youngstown, then transferred to the Grady County Jail in Chickasha, Oklahoma; then transferred to another CCA private jail in Mason, Tennessee. On 23 Mar 2015 he was transferred back again to the Warren County Jail, Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he had already spent 21 months in pre-trial detention. He would remain there until the disposition of the US case against him.

On 11 June 2015 an Anonymous group arranged for supporters to send him gifts for his birthday in prison.[21]

On November 13, 2015, in Tennessee, DeHart pleaded guilty to "two charges of receiving child pornography and a charge of failing to appear as ordered in court."[5] On February 22, 2016, U.S. District Judge Aleta Arthur Trauger of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee sentenced DeHart to 72 months for the porn charges and an additional 18 months for fleeing the country.[22] He was released from prison in October 2019.[23]