Judge Rejects Hacker’s Plea Bargain, Calls Year in Prison Overly Lenient

A federal judge on Monday unexpectedly rejected a plea bargain calling for a one-year prison term for accused computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, declaring that the 25-year-old keyboard virtuoso deserves more time behind bars.

“Mr. Mitnick, you have been engaging in this conduct for too long, and no one has actually punished you,” U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer said. “This is the last time you are going to do this.”

Both the government prosecutor and Mitnick’s lawyer appeared nonplussed at the judge’s rejection of their agreement, which also voided Mitnick’s guilty plea to two felony counts of computer fraud and possession of unauthorized telephone long-distance codes.

“I’m obviously very disappointed,” said Mitnick’s lawyer, Alan Rubin. “I think the judge obviously in her own mind considers him to be more dangerous than either I or the government considers him.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. James L. Sanders said he had no comment on the ruling, except that the one-year prison term called for under the plea agreement was within the range dictated under mandatory new federal sentencing guidelines.

Mitnick has been held without bail in a downtown Los Angeles federal detention center since his arrest in December after prosecutors said his long history of penetrating computers all over the world rendered him an unusual danger. Even his phone privileges have been restricted because of fears he could use a prison telephone to access outside computers.

But Sanders told the judge Monday that prosecutors found no evidence that Mitnick ever damaged the computers he penetrated or attempted to make money from computer software he secretly lifted from private computer banks.

“This is not a case where Mr. Mitnick destroyed anyone’s computer. This is not a situation where he implanted a virus in anyone’s computer,” the prosecutor said.

Although Mitnick originally pleaded guilty to stealing a sophisticated security program from a Digital Equipment Corp. computer, the company lost only about $160,000 in computer “down time” to trace the security breach, he said.

But the judge said a confidential pre-sentence report recommended that she exceed even the 18-month maximum prison term called for under the sentencing guidelines.

“Look at Mr. Mitnick’s background,” she said. “He is a person who has engaged in this conduct before--rather consistently before. Is there any reason to believe that he will not go right on doing this?”

Invaded Varied Systems

Starting when he was a high school student in the San Fernando Valley, Mitnick allegedly used terminals at various schools and companies to break into Defense Department computer systems, sabotage business computers and harass anyone--including a probation officer and FBI agents--who got in his way. He also manipulated the phone system to disconnect the lines of Hollywood celebrities, authorities said.

Rubin said the two felony counts to which Mitnick admitted and the one-year prison term were enough to “get his attention.”

“I believe he’s finally starting to grow up,” the defense attorney said. “He desperately wants to change his life and turn it around.”

Both the prosecutor and defense attorney said the judge’s action could make it more difficult to bring charges against Mitnick’s alleged associates in the most recent round of computer break-ins. If Mitnick is brought to trial, Sanders said, testimony from at least at least one of his associates would be required to convict him--and they would not appear as witnesses without receiving immunity from prosecution.

Pfaelzer set a May 5 hearing to consider pretrial motions in the case, but no new trial date was set. Rubin said he did not know whether Mitnick would agree to a guilty plea carrying a longer prison term.