Suspected Hacker Jailed After Failing to Post Bail

The 21-year-old computer whiz accused of causing more than $1 million in damage by hacking into EBay Inc., Qualcomm Inc. and other prominent high-tech companies was jailed Thursday after missing a deadline to make bail.

Jerome Heckenkamp, who was fired from his probationary position at Los Alamos National Laboratory after his arrest last month, failed to post $50,000 bond by Feb. 1 as ordered by a federal judge in San Jose.

Heckenkamp contends he doesn’t have the assets to secure the bond. His attorney, Jennifer Granick, has said Heckenkamp’s father refused to put up his house as collateral because he believes his son is being harassed by the authorities.

However, Ross Nadel, chief of the computer crime unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in San Jose, pointed out that the father, Thomas Heckenkamp, had told reporters he was willing to put up the house, but Jerome Heckenkamp refused.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Trumbull ordered Heckenkamp to find a way to make bail by Thursday afternoon and had him jailed in the meantime.

Heckenkamp already had surrendered last week in Albuquerque when he failed to make bail, but was released the same afternoon because there was no arrest warrant at the time.

Heckenkamp is accused of hacking or trying to break into computers at EBay, Exodus Communications Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., ETrade Group Inc., Lycos Inc. and Cygnus Support Solutions in 1999. In a separate case in San Diego, Heckenkamp is accused of hacking into Qualcomm computers in 1999 to intercept user names and passwords.

Also, federal investigators are looking into allegations Heckenkamp had engaged in hacking at the University of Wisconsin.

All the alleged incidents occurred before Heckenkamp was employed at the government lab in New Mexico. The allegations that led to the federal investigations turned up during Heckenkamp’s Los Alamos background check.

The charges carry up to 85 years in prison and $4 million in fines, though federal sentencing guidelines would dictate a much lesser punishment.