A 32-year-old Seattle man is behind bars while awaiting a federal hacking trial for launching a DDoS attack. He is being held without bail on allegations that he attacked a US-based legal services website to force it to remove a link to a case citation about his past criminal conduct. The authorities also say the suspect launched distributed denial of service attacks on various overseas media outlets for not removing stories about his credit-card scam and other crimes.

The FBI says that the day after a DDoS attack in January, 2015, the suspect sent an e-mail to Leagle.com pretending to be the hacking group Anonymous. The e-mail explained that the DDoS attack was launched because the defendant, Kamyar Jahanrakhshan, "is being unjustly victimised by you" for not abiding by his numerous requests to remove the link and even pay $100 in cash to get the job done.

"If you do not remove it immediately, more severe attacks will hit your website in the coming days and weeks, and your users will be deprived of your service," the e-mail to the Dallas-based legal services site said, according to an FBI affidavit. (PDF)

The site was hit with the attack on January 24, 2015, the FBI said. According to the bureau, the attack subsided shortly after Leagle.com removed the link.

A similar e-mail, the FBI said, was sent the following month to Fairfax Media5, which publishes the Sydney Morning Herald and other publications. The bureau said the defendant also issued bomb threats in his demands to remove stories about his previous criminal conduct.

In all, federal prosecutors said that DDoS attacks were carried out on Leagle.com, Fairfax Media5, The Metro News, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Canada.com.

"At times, federal prosecutors said, the defendant "escalated his threats from DDoS attacks to threats of bomb attacks."

Jahanrakhshan was denied bail Friday by Magistrate James Donohue in Seattle federal court.

"Defendant has multiple identities and social security numbers. He has previous convictions in Canada for multiple accounts of fraud, being in possession of devices used to make fake credit cards. He was also convicted for impersonating a police officer and obstructing justice," the judge wrote (PDF) in denying bail.

The defendant is expected to appear in federal court on August 14.