You've Got Jail! Sarah Palin's E-Mail Hacker Sentenced to One Year in Custody

(Nov. 12) -- Guessing another person's password may not be as hard as it sounds, but the punishment for doing so is anything but easy.

Former University of Tennessee economics major David Kernell was sentenced to one year in federal custody and three years' probation after being found guilty of hacking into Sarah Palin's private e-mail account in 2008.

Kernell told the court that he had guessed Palin's password to her gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail account using publicly available information, WBIR News reported, and characterized the entire episode as a prank.

Palin, who testified in the case this past spring, did not agree. "I don't think an illegal action like this is a prank," Palin told reporters. "Not when you consider how impacting it was on a presidential election."

Judge Thomas W. Phillips recommended that Kernell get counseling for depression, which the hacker is said to have experienced since the age of 11.

The Tennessee Bureau of Prisons must now decide whether Kernell will serve his time in a jail or a halfway house, The Associated Press said.

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