"They took a normal guy. I am not a hacker, and I am not a criminal"

Most of Zaragoza is still having lunch when Jorge opens his electronics store. No one can still believe that this 31-year-old man, without a criminal record and who comes from a family well-known in the neighborhood, is the same person that Madonna accused of being her "hacker."

It all began with his arrest for allegedly posting a stolen demo of her new song Gimme All Your Luvin' last November. "I still can't believe what happened," Jorge Moro Ruiz says. On December 20, police came by Moro's business and busted him on charges of revealing secrets on the internet.

"They took a normal guy. I am not a hacker, and of course, I am not a criminal," he says, still perplexed by his experience. The case was called Operation Madonnaleaks and it made worldwide headlines. "Spanish man arrested over leak of new Madonna single," The Guardian bannered.

Police at the time only identified the suspect by the initials J. M. R. Moro has every right to be angry. While the charges were dropped on January 10, newspapers around the world, including The New York Times and The Sun, gave different versions of what occurred. Madonna's attorneys in Spain from the Garrigues law firm filed a complaint on December 19 to stop the new single being posted on the internet.

"It was totally surreal, especially if you are innocent. I thought it was a joke, like a hidden television camera show," he says. Moro found the song on one of the most active international forums dedicated to the singer, hosted in Chile. "I remember my surprise when I saw Madonna's new single in the download section. It was uploaded by 'mjco.' Like all registered users, all you had to do was to click on the link and download it. That was it."

Javier Notivoli, the lawyer known for his famous defense cases such as the 2007 murder of Fago Mayor Miguel Grima, had the charges, "that had no weight," dropped. "My client didn't post the demo. All he did was download it like 3,133 other people, to be exact," says Notivoli. "And it wasn't a copyright infringement because the demo hadn't been released yet. As to revealing secrets, the guilty party is evidently the one who posted it in the first place," the lawyer explained. "The police were acting on a complaint by Madonna's lawyers, and because my client cooperated from the first moment, there was no need for a court order."

Police found that Moro was only a fan who did not earn any money from Madonna's music. They also discovered he wasn't a hacker - his knowledge of computers is everyday. Now that the case has been dropped for lack of evidence, Moro wants to know who is going to restore his honor.

Lawyers from the Garrigues firm say they are barred by attorney-client privilege from speaking about the case. Even Madonna has cracked jokes about her "hacker" on British television.

"For her to label me a criminal is shameless. Either her lawyers are not telling her the entire truth or she is acting dumb," says Moro. Since the supposed leak in the Madonna Chile forum, Gimme All Your Luvin' can be heard without any restrictions on YouTube. In fact, one day after the leak, the song was the subject most tweeted. "Guy Oseari, Madonna's manager, wrote on Twitter that while he lamented the demo's leak, he was happy at how well it was received. Now that's what I call having double standards," Moro said.

Madonna is set to perform her new hit single live at the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show on February 5. This isn't the first time a Madonna demo has been leaked early. About 10 years ago, the singer's single Music was uploaded on Napster and immediately shot to number one. It also occurred with other singles, American Life, Hung up and, as Moro recalls, "Hard Candy in 2008."

Among music executives, sound engineers and publicity agents, someone is leaking her songs. And judging by past leaks, a little publicity can't hurt anyone, including Madonna.