Yet another hacker is being jacked. This time, it's Deric Lostutter, who led a subgroup of the hacktivist collective Anonymous that helped bring the Steubenville, Ohio rape scandal to light. In return, Lostutter has been raided by the FBI and faces charges of Steubenville-related hacking and identity theft that could result in him spending ten years in prison – five times as long as the convicted rapists.

To recap, Steubenville is where Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, two of the Big Red High School football team's star players, carted a drunk, unconscious, and possibly drugged teenager from party to party, raping her several times along the way last August. Their buddies, who filmed the attack on their phones, used a variety of social media platforms to post pictures, videos, and comments about the assault hours later. They referred to themselves as the "Rape Crew".

And it looked like they were going to get away with it as late as December 2012, when the New York Times piece that first brought the case to national attention revealed dithering and cronyism among local law enforcement officials. The county prosecutor and the judge in charge of juvenile crimes "recused themselves due to their ties to the football team". Coach declined to bench any other players involved as punishment, explaining that they hadn't known they were doing anything wrong by posting online photographs of the assault or making derogatory comments about the victim.

Worst of all, the police force appeared to be having "trouble establishing … an airtight case" – despite, as the Times tactfully put it, "the seeming abundance of material online regarding the night of the suspected rape and the number of teenagers who were at the parties that night." An Ohio-based cybercrime expert was brought in to analyze evidence from the 15 phones and two iPads that were eventually confiscated, but proved unable to retrieve photographs and videos that suspected perpetrators or accomplices had deleted on most of the phones.

But Lostutter and other members of Anonymous had no such difficulties: other activists had thought to collect the incriminating evidence, legally, while it was still online in the public domain and pass it on to them. Nor did Anonymous hesitate to release it via a YouTube video that features a masked Lostutter clearly channeling his inner superhero: he tells the story of the rape, describes the town of Steubenville as being "good at keeping this quiet and their star football team protected", and names the numerous perpetrators at the parties.

After showing a picture of Mays and Richmond carrying the unconscious victim by her arms and legs, he demands justice for her, asking that her attackers and their accomplices confess their crimes and apologize publicly to the victim. Otherwise, he warns, they face the release of further incriminating evidence and personal information, including their social security numbers (this never happened). The video concludes with screenshots of several of the "deleted" Tweets, Instagram photos, and Facebook posts. "Some people deserve to be peed on," says one; "I have no sympathy for whores," writes another.

The Anonymous video quickly went viral, not least because of its placement on a local Steubenville Big Red sports fan website that another Anonymous member/comics geek by the handle of "BatCat", had hacked in to. And when no apologies or confessions emerged, Anonymous began delivering data dumps with more "lost" evidence and highlighted the ties between the investigating sheriff and the perpetrators' very protective football coach, as well as organizing online and public rallies. A masked and anonymous Lostutter even allowed himself to be interviewed on CNN, in a segment that included clips from a 12-minute "lost" video.

Suddenly, Steubenville, its local officials and everyone involved in the case found themselves in possession of a lot of evidence and sitting under a very bright national spotlight.

At the trial this past March, the young men who were at the party and did nothing to stop the assaults or report them, claimed the right to remain silent under the fifth amendment, and were subsequently granted immunity in return for their testimony. Mays and Richmond were found guilty and sentenced to the fairly light sentence of 1-2 years.

Lostutter, by contrast, describes on his blog the day this past April when he opened his door to what he thought was the FedEx guy, only to find himself confronted by "approximately 12 FBI Swat team agents [who] jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to 'Get the fuck down!' with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head. I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house."

In what may be the story's most bizarre twist, the FBI's possible charges against Lostutter stem from the hack of the fan site where the Anonymous video was first posted – despite BatCat's having publicly claimed responsibility for that deed in a local news story earlier this year. Still, BatCat has yet to be charged. Does hacking into a fan site, while certainly not innocent, really justify the appearance of a Swat team on one's doorstep and felony charges?

This week, the disparities in the Steubenville case continue. Lostutter, who wants the world to know what the FBI is doing to him, and likely needs both money for his legal defense and public outcry, has gone public with his story. Meanwhile, the judge who sentenced May and Richmond – to a fraction of what Lostutter could serve – will probably decide to move them from the juvenile detention center where they have now served less than three months, to a privately-operated, "open campus"-style rehabilitation center.

Could it be that the most serious crime, in the eyes of those charged with seeing justice done, is not the harm done to victims by convicted perpetrators, but the more grievous sin of revealing the flaws of the authorities?

• This article was corrected on 12 June 2013. BatCat has yet to be charged with any felony.

