SANTA CRUZ --

Two men with alleged ties to the online activist group Anonymous have been indicted on charges that they hacked Santa Cruz County computers in retaliation for the arrest of demonstrators who mounted a long-running protest of a ban on outdoor sleeping.

Christopher Doyon, 47, of Mountain View - who was a spokesman for the protesters - and Joshua John Covelli, 26, of Fairborn, Ohio, were indicted Wednesday for allegedly taking part in a "distributed denial of service" attack Dec. 16 against Santa Cruz County's computer servers, causing the county website to go offline.

A group known as the Peoples Liberation Front, which is associated with other activist groups including Anonymous, coordinated and executed the attack, authorities said.

"Peoples Liberation Front, also known as PLF, was an online collective of individuals that was associated with collaborative hacking attacks motivated by political and social goals, often referred to as 'hactivism,' " said the indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in San Jose.

The hacking was in retaliation for the arrests of several demonstrators protesting an outdoor sleeping ban in Santa Cruz, federal prosecutors said. The group called its protest "Peace Camp 2010" and the alleged computer intrusion "Operation Peace Camp 2010."

Doyon was a spokesman for the collective at one point. In August 2010, after Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies began warning protesters who were camping out in front of the county courthouse that they were violating a city ordinance, Doyon told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, "They came in last night, and they met some pretty stiff resistance. We're not going to take this lying down anymore."

The protest began July 4, 2010, when several dozen activists began sleeping on the county courthouse steps, and lasted into October before authorities began making arrests on unlawful-lodging charges.

Covelli was named in a separate indictment accusing him of taking part in a denial-of-service attack on PayPal in December that was claimed by Anonymous.

Thirteen other defendants have been charged in that cyberattack. Authorities said the group hacked PayPal in retaliation for its decision to bar WikiLeaks from receiving donations after the group released classified State Department cables on its website.

The loose-knit Anonymous has also taken responsibility for recent computer attacks against BART in response to a fatal officer-involved shooting.

The indictment in the Santa Cruz County case accuses Doyon and Covelli of damaging a protected computer and conspiracy.