In his petition, Gonzalez claims that all of the criminal activities that he admitted to in court were actually done with the full knowledge and the direction of the United States Secret Service.

As previously known, Gonzalez noted that he had begun working as a confidential informant for the Secret Service back in 2003 soon after he was busted in connection with a series of ATM thefts. Gonzalez claims that over the next several years, he helped the Secret Service infiltrate various carder gangs and hacking groups, leading to the arrests of many of them.

Gonzalez' petition details his interactions with two of his Secret Service handlers, who he claims treated him almost like another member of the agency and took him to different parts of the country for undercover work.

"The Agents had me infiltrating chat rooms setting people up and then the Agents would bust them," he offers as one example of the work he claims to have done for the government. "On one occasion I was taken to California for a week to help Agents there with undercover operation that resulted in arrests and convictions," Gonzalez said in his petition.

At the time of his arrest, Gonzalez said he firmly believed he was "authorized to engage in the cyber crimes I was participating in, in order to gather intelligence on National and International cyber criminals and I was doing my job to the best of my abilities," Gonzalez said. He said he was being paid $1,200 a month for his work.