Would a charge/conviction from the "hacking" case affect this gooner's probation?
Yes and no since the question was whether it would "affect" probation. While it's absolutely correct that the unauthorized access prior to the start of probation can never be a probation violation, it can have a profound effect on his chances of successfully completing probation in numerous ways, in order from most likely to least likely:
1. Nick will be required to unilaterally inform his PO of any interaction with law enforcement within 72 hours, as to which he will surely be late and gay if he bothers to report in at all.
2. Whenever his PO becomes aware of the investigation and/or charges and reviews what a conniving piece of shit it reveals Nick to be, the PO will at least informally take that into consideration when assessing the extent of "prosocial adjustment" Nick needs to demonstrate and how aggressive supervision needs to be, so anytime the PO needs to make a discretionary judgment call on something borderline, he would be that much more likely to err on the side of being a hardass at every turn.
3. The sheer stress of dealing with a new legal onslaught drastically increases the odds of relapse just like the Monty-to-Cokestream clockwork, leading to probation violations for hot UAs without any concern for the cause.
4. With some luck, added indications of a real investigation being taken seriously could provoke Nick into committing crimes that stem from the unauthorized access but actually occur within the probation period and would be probation violations all their own, such as destruction of evidence, uttering the slightest false statement to an FBI agent, witness tampering vis-a-vis
anyone on the exfiltrated data's recipient list, obstruction of justice, perjury, etc. etc. etc. With how he still thinks himself the smartest guy in any room, the temptation to interfere with the investigation in such ways may prove irresistible.
