Judge warns e-mail hacker

A judge has sentenced a woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting e-mails sent to her husband’s ex-wife.

Judge Richard Matsch said the penalty was a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.

“Privacy is still a cherished value,” he said in sentencing Angel Lee, 28, of El Mirage, Arizona.

Lee pleaded guilty in March and admitted accessing at least 215 e-mails sent last year to her husband’s ex-wife, Duongladde Ramsay.

Officials said she fraudulently obtained the user name and password information for Ramsay’s e-mail account.

Judge Matsch said the e-mail case involved a vicious divorce dispute over children.

At Lee’s sentencing on Friday, he said he considered sending her to jail but believed she needed to be home with her young children.

“I really apologise for what I did,” Lee told the judge. ”She (Ramsay) has a right to feel the way she feels.”

Ramsay has compared Lee’s actions to someone breaking into her home and reading her diary.