now there are several things that shouldn't have happened (e.g.: don't do these things on your main OS, have root access disabled, etc.), but I'll leave that to you experts.
That's a start, but on its own pretty meaningless. A suspended sentence means he does not go to prison, so long as he behaves himself for a year or however long.
The article doesn't go into it, but I hope he was also fined heavily. All we have is "the court determined it could not be resolve through fines, a prison sentence is warranted".