The world’s most infamous hacker-turned-traitor to his cause was a no-show at his arraignment in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday, afraid for his personal safety amid “safety concerns and physical threats.”
Hector Monsegur, who broke into the servers of banks and government agencies under the nom de guerre “Sabu,” admitted to being the mastermind of international hacking collective LulzSec, FoxNews.com reported exclusively on March 6.
For nearly seven months prior, he had been working for the government, betraying his web-crawling minions in basements around the world, according to authorities. Sabu worked to bring down another hacker, Jeremy Hammond, the Chicago-based self-proclaimed anarchist alleged have been behind the Stratfor hack and related Wikileaks dump.
'My name is Boo. They call me Boo. Relax. I am a federal agent.'
Monsegur was supposed to attend his arraignment Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom on criminal impersonation charges stemming from an encounter with NYPD officers back in February, when the hacker was secretly working as a cooperating witness for the FBI.
The Manhattan criminal court judge waived Monesgur's appearance and agreed to dismiss the misdemeanor charges in six months, if he stays out of trouble.
“My name is Boo. They call me Boo. Relax. I am a federal agent. I am an agent of the federal government,” Sabu told police when asked to present identification outside his Lower East Side housing complex on Feb. 3, at about 5:50pm, according to court records.
“Defendant could not produce official government identification when asked several times.
The police were “informed by FBI Special Agent Milan Patel, that defendant is not a federal agent or an agent of the federal government.”
On Thursday, the judge waived Monsegur’s appearance in court after his lawyer Peggy Cross-Goldenberg argued that there were concerns about his personal safety if he were to attend his arraignment and made a vague reference to “security concerns and physical threats.”
The four-minute hearing resulted in Monsegur’s New York criminal case being adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.
His much more serious federal case remains ongoing.
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