Los Angeles: A Pennsylvania man has decided to to plead guilty to a computer hacking charge after being accused by the authorities of using illegal means to access private phone and email accounts of celebrities, including Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence to leak nude pictures and other information.

The 36-year-old Ryan Collins was charged by the US attorney for the Central District of California, showed the court documents filed on Tuesday.

Collins signed a plea agreement to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. If convicted, Collins faces up to five years in federal prison, with a recommended prison term of 18 months and a fine of $250,000.

The case has been transferred from California to the Middle District of Pennsylvania. It is expected that Collins would surrender there and plead guilty. The sentence will be pronounced at a later date.

The court documents do not name any victims but the hacking was mentioned by Lawrence and other celebrities such as actresses Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union and model Kate Upton in interviews and on social media.

Representatives for Lawrence, Dunst, Union and Upton were yet to comment on the development. In the court documents, the prosecutors said that between November 2012 and September 2014, Collins "knowingly, intentionally, and in furtherance of criminal and tortious acts" accessed at least 50 Apple iCloud accounts and about 72 Google Gmail accounts belonging to more than 100 people.

Collins is also accused of using fraudulent email disguised to impersonate legitimate security services, such as "[email protected]," and requesting usernames and passwords from the victims, according to prosecutors.