Mitnick Associate Sentenced

Lewis DePayne, longtime friend and suspected accomplice of notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, was sentenced to six months of home detention and fined $2,500 for his supporting role in one of Mitnick’s crimes. DePayne, 39, pleaded guilty in April to impersonating an employee of Nokia Corp. in an attempt to trick the company out of valuable software in the early 1990s. Assistant U.S. Atty. Chris Painter said DePayne will be confined to his San Francisco Bay Area home when he is not working in his job as a computer consultant. DePayne was also sentenced to 225 hours of community service and five years’ probation. DePayne was a background figure in the Mitnick saga for nearly two decades. Mitnick pleaded guilty to a number of hacking charges in spring, four years after he was captured by the FBI.