SANTA ANA, Calif. — A former Orange County high school student has been charged with illegally hacking into the Google Classroom accounts of students in order to post racist and homophobic photos and comments in the class announcement section, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The DA said multiple student accounts were hacked by Aaron Ketelaar, a 19-year-old resident of the City of Orange who formerly attended Villa Park High School.
“No one should be subjected to the kind of racist and homophobic messages sent by these hackers under the pretense of being sent by fellow classmates,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
“Our schools – whether they are online or in person – must be safe havens for our children to learn and thrive. These online chat functions are essentially inviting strangers into our homes to interact with our children – and parents must be aware of their children’s online activities and the predators and haters that are using the Internet to prey on our children in order to recruit more haters.”
Ketelaar is charged with “one felony count of unauthorized computer access along with a felony hate crime enhancement.” He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in state prison if convicted on all counts.
The charges stem from a Dec. 18, 2020 incident in which the accounts of several Villa Park High School students were hacked and used to post racist photos and comments which were viewable by the teacher and students in the class.
Another account was used to interrupt two online classes with “a video of a person wearing a skull mask, sunglasses, beanie, and headset espousing racial epithets,” the DA said.
“The Orange County Sheriff’s Department SMART team, in conjunction with Orange Unified’s IT Department, investigated after the hacked posts were reported in January,” the DA’s office continued.
“Ketelaar was identified by investigators as accessing the students’ accounts during the same time the offensive posts and videos were being posted.”
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