Deric Lostutter, a self-styled online vigilante who went by the handle "KYAnonymous," has been sentenced to two years in federal prison Wednesday for his role in hacking a local high school football team website more than four years ago.

Lostutter initially denied his involvement. But in November 2016, he reversed himself and took a plea agreement in exchange for the prosecution dropping two of the four counts, including the hacking charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. (The other two counts—conspiracy and making false statements—remained.)

"Not surprised by sentence, which is a year more than one of the rapists got," Tor Ekeland, Lostutter’s attorney, told Ars by text message on Wednesday. "And on par with what one of the [other] rapists got."

As Ars has reported previously, the case stretches back to 2012. After The New York Times published a December 2012 story detailing a horrific rape involving a teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio, an activism campaign began. Spearheaded by someone calling himself "KYAnonymous," the campaign targeted local officials whom the vigilantes felt weren't taking the rape investigation seriously because the alleged perpetrators were high school football players.

Two teenage boys ended up being charged in the rape case, and when the case went to trial in March 2013, the two were convicted and sentenced to one to two years in prison.

Earlier this month, however, a local prosecutor who helped begin the August 2012 rape investigation submitted a " victim impact statement " to the federal court in Kentucky that oversaw Lostutter’s case. The prosecutor, Jane Hanlin, helped local authorities identify suspects and witnesses involved in the rape incident. (She soon recused herself from being part of the prosecution, as her son attended high school with the two suspects, who were charged on August 24, 2012.)

In the statement, Hanlin further explained that once Lostutter began taking it upon himself to promulgate the story about the alleged football players and exacting revenge on the wrong people, all hell broke loose.

As Hanlin wrote:

There were no multiple parties where the victim was repeatedly raped. There was no transportation of the victim in the trunk of a car. There were not a host of "star football players" who watched and did nothing. That narrative was simply not true, but it led to a mob mentality, which encouraged outsiders to speculate about a "cover up," even though local law enforcement had uncovered the case and began its public prosecution long before the first internet blogger arrived on the scene. The crime that Lostutter was describing was not the crime that occurred. One of the other unfortunate effects of Lostutter’s involvement was that the fear and hate that he was spreading through his false theories resulted in witnesses being frightened, intimidated and afraid to cooperate with local law enforcement officials. Up until the point that Lostutter arrived, local law enforcement had received near complete cooperation from witnesses. After Lostutter incited so much hate and fear, families were afraid to allow their children to cooperate. Thus, Lostutter did not help the matter—he actually hurt the prosecution’s efforts. … I am quite certain that Mr. Lostutter's actions were based on greed, an undying need for attention and his willingness to harm anybody who attempted to point out the truth of what occurred in Steubenville. The reputation of the citizens of Steubenville is forever harmed.

Federal prosecutors had asked that Lostutter be sentenced to two years.