A Man Accused Of Hacking Stars Including Jennifer Lawrence Has Been Arrested

In 2014, a host of female stars had private pictures leaked on line after someone gained access to their iCloud accounts and now Ryan Collins faces up to five years in prison over the incident.

He is to plead guilty to the charge of unauthorised access to a protected computer, but he is not being charged with leaking the material to the public.

According to TMZ, Collins hacked into the Apple iCloud and Gmail accounts of 18 celebrities and numerous other people between November 1, 2012 and September 2, 2014.

Though he could be jailed for up to five years, he is expected to serve 18 months in exchange for his guilty plea.

At the time of the incident in 2014, Jennifer, 25, branded the hacking a "sex crime" after her nude shots ended up on the image-based message board 4Chan. 

She said: "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. 

"The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That's why these Websites are responsible.

"Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody's mind is to make a profit from it. 

"It's so beyond me. I just can't imagine being that detached from humanity. I can't imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside."

Other stars who had their privacy violated through the scandal included Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst, Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba.