Bradley Carter landed before a federal judge Monday on a case that a prosecutor called "more than a practical joke gone too far.''

Carter, who started Phone Losers of America in the 1990s, obtained personal information about Safeway customers, made prank calls to them across the country, recorded and then broadcast the conversations on YouTube to ridicule people, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford said.

The stunt began after an anonymous Reddit user sent Carter an email with the credentials to log into a Safeway customer service account.

Carter, 44, of Albany, Oregon, obtained the personal information of shoppers from a customer satisfaction survey that the grocery store chain conducted. He then impersonated a Safeway employee and made harassing phone calls to the customers.

He recorded and uploaded the calls to his YouTube channel, seeking to drive up traffic, page views and subscribers and to secure more advertising revenue, according to the government.

With access to the customer satisfaction surveys, Carter would pose as a store manager and call the customer, and make up stuff about the consumer's complaint, according to investigators. He called customers from Massachusetts to Texas, California, Oregon and Washington.

In one case, for example, when a customer complained about a store's remodel and the moving of a Starbucks kiosk to the back of the store, Carter suggested the customer could stand to lose a few extra pounds with the extra walk. In another call, Carter spoke to a customer who had complained that the meats advertised are never available for sale in the store. Carter assured the customers that the meats are in the back, but only for really good customers. Often, the customers hung up.

The prosecution urged U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez to send Carter to prison for eight months for intentionally accessing a public computer without authorization.

He publicly embarrassed at least 14 Safeway customers and has damaged the grocer's reputation, Bradford said.

Carter's Phone Losers of America began as a group that hacked into telecommunications systems to make free calls, according to court documents. It operates a YouTube Channel by the same name that highlights practical jokes. In one featured on the site now, a man intercepts Walmart customers' calls on a Black Friday and alternately berates and insults them for their questions.

Kathleen Smith, vice president of asset protection for Albertsons, which now owns Safeway, said the company first received a complaint from an older widow who lives in Massachusetts.

She "was desperately afraid someone had gotten her information and was going to attack her,'' Smith said. The woman called police. The company initially thought the problem stemmed from one store, then started to get customers' complaints from stores across the country.

"We realized we had a bigger problem,'' Smith told the judge.

At first, the grocery chain was unsure if someone had broken into their computers. It took about five more days to determine that someone had accessed their customer satisfaction survey, handled by an unidentified third-party vendor.

Investigators, Smith said, "had to listen to his blog, which was horrendous'' to determine how many customers were harassed and from where. Safeway also had to shut down its customer service survey, affecting 2,300 stores.

"It was not funny in any way, shape or form,'' Smith told the court.

When the FBI raided his home on Nov. 8, 2016, Carter essentially confessed to the offense and accepted responsibility, his lawyer Andrew Coit said. He pleaded guilty to the crime in early July.

"I'm sorry I wasted the court's resources on something like this,'' said Carter, standing between his two lawyers. "I realize what I did was wrong.''

The judge questioned, "Mr. Carter, do you know who is in federal prison ... what happens to people like you in federal prison?''

Carter nodded.

"You think you know what's in there. But you don't,'' Hernandez continued.

Carter told the judge, "I made a mistake.''

The judge hesitated, then told Carter that the fear he's feeling at that moment, with his heart beating rapidly wondering if he'll get a federal prison sentence, "is how your victims felt.''

"You put that out there for the rest of the world to see and enjoy and laugh at,'' Hernandez said. "What do you think about putting things out there that humiliate people?''

Carter answered, "I shouldn't have done that. I'm very sorry.'' Carter also said he had taken steps to ensure that what he receives from others for his YouTube channel is obtained "lawfully.''

Hernandez said if he was still serving as a state judge and Carter came before him with this type of offense, he wouldn't hesitate to order that Carter serve up to 90 days in a community jail for his crime.

But with his options more limited in federal court, Hernandez sentenced Carter to eight months of home detention with GPS monitoring and periodic searches of his computers, 250 hours of community service and five years of probation. He also must pay $19, 600 in restitution.

"I'm going to guess you learned your lesson but something has to come out of this – so something good out of your nonsense emerges from your poor decision,'' Hernandez said.

On Carter's YouTube site under his name, it now reads, "Hi. I'm Brad and this is my YouTube channel. This used to be a channel full of stuff for the Phone Losers of America, but it's not anymore. If you want that kind of material, subscribe to PLA's channel at http://www.youtube.com/phonelosersofamerica."

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian