home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: July 3, 1991
- From: Various
- Subject: The CU in the News (data erasing; cellular fraud)
-
- ********************************************************************
- *** CuD #3.24: File 8 of 8: The CU in the News ***
- ********************************************************************
-
- From: <garbled>
- Subject: Ex-employee Attacks Data-base
- Date: Thu, 27 Jun 91 17:19:23 CDT
-
- "Ex-Employee Guilty of Erasing Data"
- By Joseph Sjostrom
- CHICAGO TRIBUNE, June 27, 1991, Section 2, p. 2
-
- A computer technician pleaded guilty Wednesday in Du Page County Court
- to erasing portions of his former employer's database last November in
- anger over the firing of his girlfriend.
-
- Robert J. Stone, 30, of 505 W. Front St., Wheaton, entered the plea on
- a charge of computer fraud to Associate Judge Ronald Mehling. In
- exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed a burglary charge.
- Mehling scheduled sentencing for Aug. 8.
-
- Defense lawyer Craig Randall said after the hearing that Stone still
- has a 30-day appeal period during which he can seek to withdraw the
- guilty plea.
-
- "I don't think he erased anything as alleged, and I don't think the
- {prosecution} would be able to prove that he did," Randall said.
-
- Stone was indicted last January for one count of burglary and one
- count of computer fraud for entering the office of his former
- employer, RJN Environmental, 202 W. Front St., Wheaton, and deleting
- eight programs from the company computer.
-
- Assistant Du Page County State's Atty. David Bayer, who prosecuted the
- case along with Assistant State's Atty. Brian Ruxton, said the progams
- were part of a company project for the state of Florida in which RJN
- was, in effect, redrawing maps in digital form and storing them in a
- computer.
-
- Bayer said Stone had left the company the previous April and that his
- girlfriend, who was not identified, worked there too but was fired in
- November.
-
- Bayer said Stone entered the firm's office last Nov. 24, a Saturday
- when nobody else was there.
-
- Employees who came to work on Sunday discovered that data had been
- erased and a quantity of data storage disks were missing.
-
- Bayer said the disks contained several months' worth of work, but were
- recovered. It took about a week to restore the rest of the missing
- computer information, Bayer said.
-
- Bayer said Wheaton police Detective Kenneth Watt interviewed Stone the
- following Monday, and said Stone admitted to erasing data and taking
- the disks. Bayer said Stone told the detective where to find the disks,
- which he had left under a stairwell at RJN.
-
- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-
- Date: Tue, Jul 2, 1991 (22:30)
- From: Barbara E. McMullen and John F. McMullen (Newsbytes Reprint)
- Subject: Arrests in "Multi-Million" Cellular Phone Fraud
-
- ****ARRESTS IN "MULTI-MILLION" CELLULAR PHONE FRAUD 07/01/91
-
- ALBANY, NEW YORK U.S.A., 1991 JUL 1 (NB) -- The New York State Attorney
- General's office has announced the arrest and arraignment of four individuals
- for allegedly illegally utilizing Metro One's cellular service for
- calls totalling in excess of $1 million per month.
-
- According to the charges, the arrested individuals duplicated a Metro
- One customer's electronic serial number (ESN) -- the serial number
- that facilitates customer billing -- and installed the chip in a
- number of cellular phones. Th defendants then allegedly installed the
- phones in cars which they parked in a location near a Metro One cell
- site in the Elmhurst section of Queens in New York City.
-
- From these cars, the defendants allegedly sold long distance service
- to individuals, typically charging $10 for a 20 minute call. Metro
- One told investigators that many of the calls were made to South
- American locations an that its records indicate that more than $1
- million worth of calls were made in this manner in May 1991.
-
- The arrests were made by a joint law enforcement force composed of
- investigators from The New York State Police, New York City Police
- Special Frauds Squad, United States Service, and New York State
- Attorney General's office. The arrests were made after undercover
- officers, posing as customers, made phone calls from the cellular
- phones to out-of-state locations. The arrests were, according to a
- release from the Attorney General's office, the culmination of an
- investigation begun in September 1990 as the result of complaints
- from Metro One.
-
- The defendants, Carlos Portilla, 29, of Woodside, NY; Wilson
- Villfane, 33, of Jackson Heights, NY; Jaime Renjio-Alvarez, 29, of
- Jackson Heights, NY and Carlos Cardona, 40, of Jackson Heights, NY,
- were charged with computer tampering in the first degree and
- falsifying business records in the first degree, both Class E
- felonies,- and theft of services, a Class A misdemeanor.
- Additionally, Portilla and Villfane were charged were possession of
- burglar tools, also a Class A misdemeanor. At the arraignment,
- Portilla and Renjio-Alvarez pleaded guilty to computer tampering and
- the additional charges against those individuals were dropped.
-
- New York State Police Senior Investigator Donald Delaney, commenting
- on the case to Newsbytes, said "This arrest is but the tip of the
- iceberg. There is an on-going investigation in the area of cellular
- phone fraud and we are looking for those that are organizing this
- type of criminal activity."
-
- (Barbara E. McMullen & John F. McMullen/Press Contact: Edward
- Barbini, NYS Department of Law, 518-473-5525/19910701)
-
- ********************************************************************
-
- ------------------------------
-
- **END OF CuD #3.24**
- ********************************************************************
-