Martin Gottesfeld was arrested by the FBI in Miami today, and charged with launching a computer attack against Boston Children’s Hospital as a part of the hacking group “Anonymous” according to an NBC News report. Gottesfeld was not a passenger on the ship. Rather, he and his wife were rescued by the Disney Wonder after putting out a distress call from their sailboat near Cuba on Tuesday. Based on what was on their sailboat, it’s possible Gottesfeld was attempting to flee the country. He had been the subject of an FBI investigation since 2014.
While the affidavit does not say where the couple was headed, it notes the Gottesfelds had “some luggage with them, along with three laptop computers.”
In the papers, the feds allege Gottesfeld “posted a YouTube video calling, in the name of Anonymous, for action against the local hospital in response to its treatment of Patient A.”
The patient is described as a teenage girl “who was the subject of a high-profile custody battle between her parents and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The April 2014 attack took down the hospital’s network for “at least seven days,” including the hospital’s website, and did $300,000 in damage, the papers state.
Neither the hospital nor the child is identified in the papers. But they note that “the issue of Patient A’s custody and medical care became a national media story, with religious and political organizations and others asserting that the case was an example of government interference with parental rights.”