Celebgate hack: Collins sentenced over nude photos theft

Naked photographs of Jennifer Lawrence were leaked online after an iCloud hack in 2014

A Pennsylvania court has sentenced a man to 18 months in jail for hacking into the accounts of celebrities and stealing nude photos and videos.

Ryan Collins, 36, pleaded guilty to the charges in May.

He had stolen the usernames and passwords of more than 600 people.

Collins tricked his victims - including actresses Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Scarlett Johansson, and Kirsten Dunst - by sending emails appearing be from Google or Apple.

Collins was charged with accessing the photos between 2012 and 2014, in a case known as "celebgate". But was not charged with releasing them.

A statement by prosecutors said: "Investigators have not uncovered any evidence linking Collins to the actual leaks or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained."

Collins accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts.

Court filings said he had used fraudulent email addresses designed to look like security accounts from service providers, including [e-mail], [e-mail] and [e-mail].

Collins was originally charged in Los Angeles, but sentenced in Pennsylvania, his home state.