A Kentucky man said that his home was raided by the FBI in April in connection with the Anonymous hacker group’s publicizing of the Steubenville rape case.
Deric Lostutter, who describes himself as a member of Anonymous, told the Huffington Post that agents showed up at his home in Winchester, Ky.
“They seized my laptop, my girlfriend’s laptop, flash drives, music CDs, an external hard-drive, two cell phones and my brother’s xbox 360 for some reason,” Lostutter told the website, referring to the raid.
Lostutter believes the raid was carried out because he was involved with publishing when an Ohio teenager was raped by two high school football players in August 2012. He said he published social media photographs, messages, and videos that appear to make fun of the girl.
“The tweets, screenshots, Instagrams. ... Pretty much everything you’ve seen in the media, that came through me,” Lostutter added.
Two high school players, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, were found guilty of sexually assaulting the girl earlier this year.
Lostutter told Mother Jones on how get got involved in Anonymous.
“It was everything that I'd ever preached, and now there’s this group of people getting off the couch and doing something about it. I wanted to be part of the movement,” he said.
After hearing about the rape case, he said he wanted to publicize it because “I was always raised to stick up for people who are getting bullied.”
According to the Ars Technica website, he has yet to be charged with a crime.
During the raid, he said that “Swat Team agents jumped out of the truck screaming for me to ”Get The [expletive] Down“ with m-16 assault rifles and full riot gear armed safety off, pointed directly at my head.”
He added: “I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house. My brother soon emerged later with his new girlfriend, both bewildered that the F.B.I. was at my house seeing as I have no prior criminal history, both of them in handcuffs as well.”
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