A Southern California man who already served federal time for hacking into Lexis-Nexis has begun a state prison term for allegedly using his skills to try and extort phone sex from an internet celebrity.

Jeffrey Robert Weinberg, 23, pleaded no contest to a single count of computer intrusion in May, and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was transferred to California's Tehachapi state prison on Thursday.

Cyberstalking victim Amor Hilton, the teenage hostess of the Stickam show Bare Naked.

Image: Hilton's MySpace profileWeinberg was arrested by LAPD detectives in Southern California in January, following a weeks-long police investigation aided by victim Amor Hilton – a teenage MySpace user who had a popular video streaming show on Stickam.com.

According a blog post by Hilton prior to Weinberg's arrest, she found herself locked out of her MySpace account on December 28, the same day she began receiving harassing phone calls from a hacker calling himself "V.I.P." – a handle used by Weinberg in the past. The calls continued over the course of several days, and often took a threatening tone, she says.

During that time, the hacker allegedly disconnected Hilton's cellphone account, and took over her account on Stickam. He allegedly demanded phone sex and nude photos from Hilton.

Hilton reported the harassment to the police, and recorded one of the phone calls. Weinberg was arrested after Hilton matched his mug shot to a photo the hacker had sent her.

A charge of attempted extortion, and four other charges, were dropped in the plea deal. But when his state prison term ends, Weinberg is expected to be transferred to federal custody for a hearing on whether he violated the conditions of his supervised release.

Weinberg was sentenced (.pdf) to 10 months in prison in December 2006 for hacking the Lexis-Nexis owned consumer database Accurint, and was released last November to begin three years of federal supervised release. Under the conditions of his supervision, he had to submit to random inspections of his computer hard drive, and was forbidden from possessing or using encryption software, among other restrictions. Committing a new crime is also considered a violation.

"What happens is, after he does his two years state prison, which starts from the time I arrested him in January, then he has to go … face the judge for his violation of federal probation," says LAPD Detective Eric Jones. "They won't do that until he's just about ready to get out of federal prison."

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