Biography
Marty Gottesfeld (sometimes styled “Martin Gottesfeld”) is an American activist and computer engineer known for his involvement in hacktivism on behalf of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. In 2014, he carried out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the computer networks of Boston Children’s Hospital and the Wayside Youth & Family Support Network in Massachusetts as a protest over the medical treatment and subsequent custody dispute involving a teenage patient. His actions disrupted the hospital network and its fundraising portal, and affected other hospital networks in the area.
A federal jury convicted Gottesfeld in August 2018 on one count of conspiracy to damage protected computers and one count of damaging protected computers. He was sentenced in January 2019 to 121 months (just over 10 years) in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution for the attacks. Gottesfeld has been incarcerated since February 2016, after being arrested following an attempted flight from the U.S. by boat off the coast of Cuba. Prosecutors and court officials described his crimes as seriously disruptive and potentially harmful, whereas supporters and some commentators characterize his actions as politically motivated protest.
