Tennessee Student Indicted for Hacking Palin E-mail

under suspicion for allegedly obtaining unauthorized access into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail account, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee.

According to a Justice Department spokeswoman, the grand jury returned the indictment Tuesday afternoon, and Kernell turned himself into the FBI this morning. Kernell is being arraigned in Tennessee today.

Kernell is indicted on one charge of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The indictment charges that Kernell reset the password on Palin's e-mail account to obtain access to it, then posted the new password "popcorn" in a web forum. At least one other person successfully used that password to gain unauthorized access to Palin's account. The indictment does not identify that individual.

If convicted of the charge, Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three year term of supervised release.

No trial date has been set.

Kernell is the son of a Democratic state representative in Tennessee, Mike Kernell.

More to come.

By Kim Zetter for Wired.com