Hacker Has Time Added to Sentence : Mitnick Will Spend 4 1/2 More Months in Custody

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday sentenced confessed computer hacker Kevin Mitnick to a year in prison to be followed by six months in a residential psychological counseling program, altering plans for a sentence that she had announced on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer said that she had to modify her plan to place Mitnick, 25, in a rehabilitation center in Los Angeles, where he would have been treated as an addictive personality because the center did not have the required contract with the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Rather, Mitnick will spend 4 1/2 months additional time in federal custody and then spend six months in a program run by Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center in Los Angeles.

Mitnick will get credit for the 7 1/2 months he has been in custody while charges were pending against him.

Harriet Rossetto, a Gateways official, said Mitnick will undergo essentially the same treatment program he would have undergone under the plan Pfaelzer discussed Monday, except that it will be for a shorter period of time and he will sleep at the Community Treatment Center in Echo Park, rather than at the rehabilitation center in MacArthur Park where he will spend daytime hours.

Mitnick, a Panorama City resident, pleaded guilty in May to one count of computer fraud for breaking into a Digital Equipment Corp. computer system and stealing some security software, and one count of unauthorized possession of MCI telephone access codes.

Federal sentencing guidelines indicate a 12- to 18-month prison sentence for such a crime.

After Mitnick concludes his prison time, he will be under “supervised release” for three years, including six months in the Gateways program, said Assistant U.S. Atty. James R. Asperger.

“We think it’s a very fair sentence,” the prosecutor said. “The sentence shows computer hacking is serious business that can result in jail time.”

Alan Rubin, Mitnick’s lawyer, said he hopes his client would serve his prison time at Lompoc so that he could be near his wife and the rest of his family.