pcTattletale founder pleads guilty to federal hacking charges

Bryan Fleming, the founder of pcTattletale, entered a guilty plea on Tuesday in a San Diego federal court. Fleming pleaded guilty to federal charges of computer hacking, the sale and advertising of surveillance software for unlawful uses, and conspiracy. The prosecution, brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, marks the first successful U.S. federal prosecution of a stalkerware operator in more than a decade. The last such case occurred in 2014 with the indictment and subsequent guilty plea of the creator of the phone surveillance app StealthGenie.

Under Fleming’s control since at least 2016, pcTattletale operated as an illegal spyware business whose surveillance products allowed customers to spy on the phones and computers of unsuspecting victims. The software was marketed for surreptitiously spying on spouses and partners, allowing users to track location data, messages, and photos without consent. Fleming shut down pcTattletale in 2024 following a data breach that exposed the information of more than 138,000 customers who had signed up to use the service. At the time, Fleming stated that the company was completely finished and out of business.

The plea follows a multi-year investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a U.S. federal law enforcement agency. HSI began investigating pcTattletale in mid-2021 after finding over 100 stalkerware websites offering surveillance products. Investigators believed Fleming was operating the business from his home in Bruce Township, Michigan. In 2022, HSI obtained a search warrant for Fleming’s email accounts, which revealed he knowingly assisted customers seeking to spy on nonconsenting, non-employee adults. To gather evidence, HSI special agent Nick Jones went undercover as an affiliate marketer, exchanging emails with Fleming, who provided promotional images designed to help users catch cheating partners. Federal agents later raided Fleming’s Michigan home, which he has since sold for $1.2M. Financial records seized during the investigation showed that Fleming’s bank and PayPal accounts had transactions totaling more than $600,000 as of the end of 2021. The search warrant affidavit was unsealed in early December 2025.

The conviction has been welcomed by digital rights advocates. Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a digital rights nonprofit) and co-founder of the Coalition Against Stalkerware, noted that stalkerware companies frequently operate in the open because their operators rarely face legal consequences. Commenting on the plea, Galperin said, “I hope that this case changes the risk calculus for makers of stalkerware.” Fleming is expected to be sentenced later this year.

Why it matters

This is the first successful U.S. federal prosecution of a stalkerware operator in more than a decade, potentially setting a precedent for future investigations into the industry.