We Are Anonymous. We Are Legion. We Plead Guilty In Court.

On Thursday 8 January 2009, then 18-year old Mahoud Samed Almahadin (aka Matt Connor aka Agent Pubeit) took off his shirt, proceeded to rub vaseline all over his upper body and subsequently used it to hold toenail clippings and pubic hair. He then ran into the New York Scientology building, tossed some books around and smeared the mixture on objects.

After his greasy raid, Mahoud Samed Almahadin was charged with burglary, criminal mischief, and aggravated harassment as hate crimes. Weeks later, 21 year-old film student and Anonymous member Jacob Speregen was charged with the same crimes, bar burglary, because he had filmed Almahadin carrying out his prank (video below).

This morning, the Church of Scientology put out a press release, rejoicing the fact that Almahadin apparently pled guilty in the New York City Criminal Court.

Savvy surfers will correctly assume Almahadin is a ‘member’ of the Anonymous collective, a loosely organized movement of sorts among Internet users often associated with message boards 4chan and Futaba. Anonymous often triggers actions against the Church of Scientology, among other organizations or individuals, both in real life and on the Web.

Here’s the Church of Scientology’s take on the guilty plea:

According to court documents, Anonymous is an underground hate group that, in addition to the cyber attack, targeted Churches of Scientology and members with death threats, bomb threats and fake anthrax mail. In addition to Scientology Churches and the Prime Minister of Australia, Anonymous has also targeted The Epilepsy Foundation, hip-hop music websites and others.

Now that he has plead guilty, Almahadin will be forced to stand on the digital sidelines in Anonymous’ actions against the Church of Scientology: as part of his plea, he is required to stay away from the organization for the next five years.

Somehow, I don’t think he’ll mind that.

Bonus video:

Crunchbase

• 4CHAN

Company: 4chan

Website: 4chan.org

Launch Date: October 1, 2003

4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images. Different boards are dedicated to different topics, from Japanese anime to videogames, music, and photography. Users do not need to register a username before participating in the community.

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