Computer Hacker Mitnick to Get 22-Month Term

A federal judge indicated Monday that she plans to sentence famed computer hacker Kevin Mitnick to 22 months in prison for cellular phone fraud and violating his probation from an earlier computer crime conviction.

The sentencing Monday is only a small part of Mitnick’s legal problems. Still pending against him is a 25-count federal indictment accusing him of stealing millions of dollars in software during an elaborate hacking spree while he was a fugitive. A trial date in that case has yet to be set.

U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer on Monday held off on formally sentencing Mitnick for a week in order to give her time to draft conditions for Mitnick’s probation after he serves the prison term.

Pfaelzer said she plans to sentence Mitnick to eight months on the cellular phone fraud charge and 14 months for violating his probation from a 1988 computer-hacking conviction, Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher Painter said. The sentences will run consecutively.

Mitnick faces the sentence for violating terms of his probation when he broke into Pac Bell voice mail computers in 1992 and used stolen passwords of Pac Bell security employees to listen to voice mail, Painter said. At the time, Mitnick was employed by Teltec Communications, which was under investigation by Pac Bell.

Mitnick spent more than two years as a fugitive before his capture in 1995 in North Carolina where he was found with hundreds of cellular phone codes, which he had been using to access cellular phone systems.

Following his arrest in Raleigh, N.C., Mitnick pleaded guilty to one federal count of cellular phone fraud and admitted to violating terms of his probation.

In return for his plea, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles agreed to drop 22 other fraud charges--brought in an indictment handed down against Mitnick in Raleigh--but warned at the time that charges on “far more serious” offenses could follow.

They did. A federal grand jury indicted Mitnick last September on 25 counts, accusing him of stealing millions of dollars in software through an elaborate hacking spree during the more than two years that he was a fugitive.

Mitnick’s attorney, Donald C. Randolph, said he plans to request that the case be brought to trial in January. Randolph added that he was pleased with the sentence that Judge Pfaelzer outlined Monday, noting that prosecutors had sought a two-year prison term for the probation violation.