WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has indicted the son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker in connection with the hacking of the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn., the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

David Kernell was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Palin, Alaska’s governor, the Justice Department said.

Kernell, an economics major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.

His father, a Memphis Democrat, is chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee. Mike Kernell has said he had nothing to do with the hacking incident.

The indictment against David Kernell alleged that on Sept. 16 he reset the password to Palin’s personal e-mail account to gain access to it. Authorities say Kernell then read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information, later posting some of the information to a public Web site.

The Justice Department said the case was being prosecuted by section chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Mark Krotoski of the criminal division’s computer crime and intellectual property section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The FBI’s Anchorage and Knoxville field offices investigated the case.

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