VIRTUAL
DISOBEDIENCE
chat rooms and knowingly communicating with other members
of Anonymous.
Covelli said he has gone through
various periods over the past two
years during which “everything
seemed dark and dim.” He has
been diagnosed with depression
that is “exacerbated by the threat
of prison that hangs over him,” his
attorney said in court filings.
“At first it was soul-crushing,”
Covelli told The Huffington Post.
“I was like, ‘Holy crap, everything
is going to end. What am I going
to do?’”
Today, Covelli is unemployed,
living with his parents and volunteering 35 hours a week at a food
pantry in Sidney, Ohio. He attended a drug treatment facility after
violating pre-trial conditions by
smoking marijuana, according to
court records.
He now faces potentially 30
years in prison — much longer than
his co-defendants — because he
also has been charged in connection with a separate hacking case.
Authorities say Covelli helped bring
down Santa Cruz County’s website
in December 2010 in protest of a
local ordinance that barred people
from sleeping outdoors.
Covelli said his only possessions
HUFFINGTON
06.30-07.07.13
“At first it was soulcrushing. I was like,
‘Holy crap, everything
is going to end. What
am I going to do?’”
are a laptop and an Xbox that he
received as a gift. The U.S. Marshals
Service pays for his flights to court
hearings because his attorney has
told the court that Covelli is indigent. “I ran out of money fast and
have been living on almost nothing
or from the generosity of my family,” he said in an interview.
He found some work painting
in Ohio but said he missed out on
other job opportunities because of
the charges against him. He briefly
worked at a McDonald’s restaurant,
a gig he called “the best job I’ve had
in two years.” He lost one job because he was forced to request time
off to attend a court hearing, his attorney said in court filings.
Last month, Covelli tweeted
from court that he was “bored”
and suggested that supporters organize a game of whiffle ball outside the courthouse.
Another defendant in the PayP-