Florida Private Investigator Charged With Attempting to Hack Muslim Charity

Timothy Sedlak, a private investigator in Florida, was charged Monday with trying to gain unauthorized access to a charity's computer system allegedly while doing research on whether some nonprofits are “unintentionally” providing financial support to Islamic jihadists.

The charity wasn't identified in a complaint filed against the 42-year-old Sedlak in federal court in the Southern District of New York, but court documents showed that the organization recorded around 390,000 unauthorized attempts from IP addresses associated with the investigator to access its systems during June and July. Those attempts affected workflow and at times prevented employees from accessing their email.