A Nebraska man has admitted that he participated in an attack in the Church of Scientology's website.
In a plea agreement signed Friday, Brian Thomas Mettenbrink, 20, said he downloaded custom software from a message board controlled by the anti-Scientology group known as Anonymous with the intent of inflicting damage to the COS, or Church of Scientology.
"Defendant used that software to, without authorization, access the COS websites at such a high rate that it impaired the integrity and availability of the COS websites and the computer system where they were hosted," the agreement stated.
He is scheduled to formally enter his guilty plea in court next week, according to a release issued by the US Attorney's office in Los Angeles.
Anonymous launched the campaign against the COS after the organization demanded websites pull a video of Tom Cruise that was shot at an church awards event. Tactics used in the campaign included nuisance phone calls to COS premises, denial-of-service attacks, and monthly protests outside COS facilities. Members of the loosely-affiliated group are known for wearing Guy Fawkes-style masks during protests.
The plea agreement said Mettenbrink and prosecutors agreed that 12 months of incarceration was an appropriate sentence, but the judge will have the final say.
Anonymous members formally declared war on the Church of Scientology in January 2008 after the secretive religious group tried to suppress a creepy Tom Cruise video produced for Scientology member