"Damage and loss to the state of more than $5000"?
Odd, that figure seems very modest. Positively plausible, even.
What did he actually do to these servers, to meet this ludicrously low threshold?
A 19-year-old who goes by the handle Vigilance online has been indicted in a Saint Paul, Minnesota district court for allegedly breaking into and interfering with servers operated by the state. Vigilance, identified by the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota as Cameron Thomas Crowley, was charged by a grand jury on May 22 in a …
The feds only have jurisdiction if the loss over $5,000. It doesn't mean the loss was $5,000. The actual loss will be taken into account with his sentence, ie the higher the dollar loss, the longer the sentence. The feds have little charts for figuring out how long he'll serve.