Man sentenced to six years in ‘sextortion’ case that started in Glendale

A Santa Ana man who extorted sexual images from dozens of women via a computer virus was sentenced on Thursday to six years in federal prison.

The man, Luis Mijangos, 32, was also allegedly hired to hack into the computer and monitor a woman in Glendale, sparking a probe in 2009 by local police that led to the FBI investigation, and later, Mijangos’ arrest.

Glendale police discovered Mijangos after the woman claimed her ex-boyfriend was stalking her via e-mails. It turned out, Mijangos was hired by her ex-boyfriend to spy on her using virus-encoded emails, police said.

After Glendale police detectives discovered Mijangos had sent the computer virus to other women, they took their findings to the FBI.

Mijangos pleaded guilty in March 2011 to computer hacking and wiretapping, and later to using a teenage girl’s hacked computer to take naked photos of her.

U.S. District Court Judge George H. King called Mijangos’s actions “psychological warfare” and “cyberterrorism,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.