Plea Deal In Works As Admitted Miley Cyrus Hacker Debriefs With FBI

The Tennessee man who has admitted hacking Miley Cyrus’s e-mail and MySpace accounts is being debriefed by FBI agents as a prelude to him pleading guilty to unrelated federal criminal charges, according to a U.S. District Court filing.

In seeking a recent court continuance, the lawyer for Joshua Holly revealed that he and his 21-year-old client have met with an FBI case agent “for the purposes of a proffer” and that they needed extra time to “have a further meeting(s) to continue that proffer.”

The lawyer, Sumter Camp, noted in an April 14 affidavit that the proffer came as “a prelude to a settlement in this case.”

During a proffer session, a defendant can provide law enforcement officials with details of their criminal activity (and that of others), but those admissions cannot be used against them at trial. The proffer allows investigators to get a clear picture of what the defendant has to offer in exchange for a plea deal.

In Holly’s case, the debriefing sessions would likely touch on his extensive spamming and hacking escapades. When the FBI raided his Murfreesboro home in October 2008, Holly, who uses the online handle Train Req, told an agent that he often gained unauthorized access to “accounts belonging to celebrities” and used them to send out unauthorized spam messages. He targeted celebrities because the “high volume of Internet traffic they attracted" helped to cloak his illegal activities.

Holly, pictured in the above mug shot, did not return a voicemail message. Camp, a federal public defender, did not return a message left at his Nashville office.