Alleged Hacker May Get Use of Computer

A federal judge may allow Kevin Mitnick use of a computer to help him defend himself against computer and wire fraud charges.

U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer earlier had vowed to keep Mitnick away from computers, but she seemed to back away from that edict after listening to lawyers’ arguments Wednesday.

Mitnick, who grew up in the Valley and began his electronic obsession by breaking into Los Angeles Unified School District computers while a student at Monroe High School in North Hills, was on parole for other computer-related convictions when he allegedly went on a three-year hacking spree in 1992. He has been in prison since he was arrested in 1995.

Pfaelzer set an April 14 trial on 25 counts of computer and wire fraud, possessing unlawful access devices, damaging computers and intercepting electronic messages.

Mitnick has pleaded not guilty to those charges. If convicted, he could face another five to 10 years in prison.

He is accused of damaging computers and stealing millions of dollars in software from high-tech companies, damaging computers at the University of Southern California and using stolen computer passwords.

Defense attorney Donald Randolph told the judge there were millions of documents on databases that could take hundreds of hours to inspect and read. He promised the computer would not have a modem so Mitnick couldn’t electronically penetrate any database.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler said that if all the documents were printed it would fill up a space larger than the courtroom.

Pfaelzer seemed to warm to the notion that Mitnick have access to a laptop computer, and she told both sides to confer on how Mitnick could best view the evidence against him.

Mitnick has been in jail since he was arrested in February 1995 in Raleigh, N.C., after an investigation and cross-country manhunt ended in a trap sprung by Tsutomo Shimomura, an expert in computer security.