Calif. AG may bring charges in HP probe
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California Attorney General Bill Lockyer yesterday said crimes were committed in a Hewlett-Packard Co. investigation of board members ' possible involvement in corporate information leaks , and charges are likely to be brought against either company executives or private investigators they hired .
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, a former company lawyer, and three outside investigators wereÂ charged Wednesday in CaliforniaÂ on felony charges related to the conduct of an investigationÂ to track down news leaks from the HP board that allegedly broke state law. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office said charges have also been filed against Kevin Hunsaker, a former senior lawyer at HP; Ronald L. DeLia, a Boston-area private detective; Matthew DePante, manager of Action Research Group, a Melbourne, Florida, information broker; and Bryan Wagner, a Littleton, Colorado, man who is said to have obtained private phone records while working for Action Research. TheÂ charges were announced at a press conference held Wednesday at the California Department of Justice. The charges include using false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes. All of the charges are felonies. "One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its way as its board sought to find out who leaked confidential information to the press," said Lockyer in a statement, released Wednesday. "In this misguided effort, people inside and outside of HP violated privacy rights and broke state law." Lockyer's office has been investigating the spying allegations because HP is based in Palo Alto, California. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been conducting separate investigations of HP. In a statement released Wednesday in advance of the Sacramento press conference, HP said it was continuing to cooperate with state and federal investigators. The private investigators hired by HP allegedly used "pretexting," pretending to be someone they are not, to obtain the telephone records of HP directors, other employees and journalists who cover the company in an attempt to find out who from the board provided information to the reporters. The scandal has attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress.Â On Sept. 28,Â Dunn told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that she believed employees and lawyers who said that the HP's leak investigation complied with the company's standards of conduct. The subcommittee was holding hearings into the use of pretexting. The committee passed a federal ban on pretexting but the Congress adjourned before the full House or the Senate voted on the legislation. When questioned about the techniques used to track down the leaks arose in the latter part of the investigation, Dunn said, she passed concerns to company Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd. Before then, the company's lawyers had assured her the techniques were being done "legally and properly," she said. "At no time in the investigation did I authorize its methods," Dunn said. "I asked this to be done in the HP standard way." On his part, Hurd told the subcommittee that he was not aware of the details of the techniques being used. He said he did not read a report from the investigating team that detailed the use of pretexting. Ann Baskins,Â who resigned right before the subcommittee hearing as HP's senior vice president and general counsel, and Hunsaker both asserted their rights not to testify under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution during the hearing. Also taking the fifth before the subcommittee were Delia, Wagner and Action Research owner Joe DePante. Dunn faces these criminal charges at a difficult time in her personal life. Dunn, is scheduled to begin chemotherapy Friday for a recurrence of advanced ovarian cancer, according to a Wednesday report in the San Jose Mercury News. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2004 and had been treated for breast cancer and melanoma dating back to 2001, the paper reported. (Stephen Lawson and Robert McMillan contributed to this story) Â
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California's attorney general says he has sufficient evidence for indictments within HP and outside the company in its investigation of whether the company illegally obtained the private phone records of directors and journalists.
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By Jordan Robertson  California's attorney general said Tuesday that Hewlett-Packard insiders are likely to face criminal charges, putting a damper on the news HP was reshuffling its board because of the scandal surrounding its efforts to root out media leaks.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.Nhas been   contacted by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of   California regarding the company's probe into media leaks, the   company said in a regulatory filing made on Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee probing theÂ Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) pretexting case has issued more subpoenas to compel witness testimony at a Thursday hearing. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Energy and Commerce Committee issued subpoenas Wednesday for five people identified as "pretexters," data brokers who sometimes obtain access to confidential records under false pretenses. HP has been embroiled in a scandal over its hiring of private investigators who engaged in possibly illegal pretexting to investigate news leaks from HP's board to reporters. Served with subpoenas, according to the Subcommittee, are: Bryan Wagner, a private investigator from Littleton, Colorado; Charles Kelly, of the CAS Agency in Villa Rica, Georgia; Cassandra Selvage of Eye in the Sky Investigations, of Dade City, Florida; Darren Brost, of Austin, Texas; and Valerie Preston from InSearchOf Inc., of Cooper City, Florida. Wagner was identified in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal article as a suspect in the pretexting of phone records of HP directors, employees and journalists who cover the Palo Alto, California technology company. The Journal reported that Wagner told an investigator that he smashed his computer to pieces with a hammer, destroying data that was saved on it. The article also said that the destruction of the computer may hamper an investigation by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office into possible illegal activity by people at HP or by the private investigators HP hired. The five who were subpoenaed Wednesday have been added to a list of witnesses that also includes HP's Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd and former board chairman Patricia Dunn, who resigned last Friday because of the scandal. While Dunn and Hurd have volunteered to appear, two other HP executives involved in the investigation were subpoenaed: senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and Global Security Manager Anthony Gentilucci. Hunsaker "left the company" and Gentilucci "resigned" effective Tuesday, said HP spokesman Ryan Donovan. Also subpoenaed are Ron DeLia, operator of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., a Needham, Massachusetts, private investigations firm, and Joe Depante, owner of Action Research Group, of Melbourne, Florida. HP has acknowledged hiring both those firms in its leak investigation and that they used pretexting to track down personal phone records. Â
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(InfoWorld) - A spokesman from the California attorney general's office Friday said that Attorney General Bill Lockyer at this point does not have any evidence to charge Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd with a criminal offense in the ongoing investigation intoÂ HP's probe of journalists and board members. However, Thomas Dressler, a Lockyer spokesman, said that Lockyer and his office are still in the middle of an investigation, so it does not mean Hurd is in the clear yet. "The key words are 'at this point,'" he said Friday. "We're not ruling anyone out in terms of criminal culpability. We have much more work to do, many more documents to review, more people to interview." The probe could have serious consequences for HP as evidence continues to surface that investigators not only used pretexting -- or obtaining phone records under false pretenses -- but also physical surveillance and e-mail tracking software that was placed on at least one target's computer without her knowledge to gather information. HP has acknowledged that it undertook an investigation of employees, board members and journalists, in an attempt to find out who on the HP board was leaking information. A report in The Washington Post Thursday cited e-mail that indicated Hurd knew about details of the investigation, and HP's share price began falling after reports that suggested he approved elaborate spying tactics to obtain reporter information. Patricia Dunn, HP's chairman, already has agreed toÂ step aside as chairman in January in the wake of the scandal, and two others also have resigned from the board. Hurd will take over as chairman of the board when Dunn leaves, though she will remain on the board. Hurd is expected to speak publicly for the first time about the scandal in a press conference at 4:05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. According to HP spokeswoman Emma Wischhusen, Hurd will not field reporter questions, but will make only prepared comments. A representative from a law firm representing HP, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, also will speak at the press conference. Â
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As scandal over HP methods mushrooms, House plans investigatory hearings; company reps will likely be called to testify.
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The Justice Department has launched a probe into Hewlett-Packard's methods to uncover the source of press leaks, the company has disclosed. The state of California and the House Commerce Committee are also investigating, it said.
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Attorney general calls former Chairman Patricia Dunn 'catalyst' for HP leak hunt and say others could be charged.
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(InfoWorld) - California Attorney General Bill Lockyer says criminal charges are "likely" in the scandal surrounding alleged spying involving the board of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), reports say. Meanwhile, HP board Chairman Patricia Dunn says she will not resign over the scandal and that she was "appalled" that contractors hired to investigate news leaks used potentially illegal methods, news reports say. The Wall Street Journal reported the HP board will hold a special meeting by phone this weekend to discuss the situation. HP is on the defensive after the disclosures this week thatÂ phone records of HP board membersÂ andÂ journalistsÂ were hacked to see who on the board discussed confidential strategy sessions with reporters earlier this year. The company disclosed in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday that investigators, in order to identify the leaker, had used "pretexting," a method in which false pretenses are used to gain online access to others' phone records. The investigation determined that director George Keyworth was the source for a Cnet.com story in January about HP's strategy. Keyworth was asked to resign from the board in May but refused. Board member Thomas Perkins, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, did resign in May in protest over concerns with the HP board's handling of investigations into leaks of confidential information. Dunn, in an interview in the Journal Friday, said that while she ordered the investigation of board news leaks, she did not know the investigators hired to conduct the probe used pretexting. "I was appalled. And I'm going to apologize," to those journalists, she told the Journal. Because she was also subject to investigation, she said she could not have known what methods the investigators used. But while she does not plan to resign, Dunn will take into consideration what the board thinks she should do. "I serve entirely at the pleasure of the board,'' Dunn told the Journal. "If they determine it no longer is in the interest of shareholders [for me to remain on the board] I will do so.'' Charges could be filed under a California law prohibiting gaining unauthorized access to computer data or under another law prohibiting identity theft through unauthorized use of personal information, published reports say. The investigation is ongoing but prosecution is likely because a crime has occurred, Lockyer told the San Jose Mercury News. A bill to specifically outlaw pretexting is on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk awaiting his signature. The governor has until the end of September to sign or veto the bill, spokesman Darrel Ng told IDG News Service. Schwarzenegger hasn't taken a position on the pretexting bill, but only because it is one of hundreds of bills passed during the recently concluded session of the California Legislature, Ng said.
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California's attorney general  on Wednesday filed felony charges against former  Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chairman Patricia Dunn and four  others for spying on journalists and the company's own board of  directors and executives.
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California's attorney general filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday seeking indictments of former Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others for their roles in a probe into board leaks.
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The California attorney general   said on Friday there was no evidence yet linking   Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ.N Chief Executive Mark Hurd to any   criminal wrongdoing, as scrutiny grew over his role in the PC   and printer maker's probe of boardroom leaks.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif  - California's attorney general on Wednesday filed felony charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others for spying on journalists and the company's own board of directors and executives.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn, a former company lawyer, and three outside investigators wereÂ charged Wednesday in CaliforniaÂ on felony charges related to the conduct of an investigationÂ to track down news leaks from the HP board that allegedly broke state law.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. _ California's attorney general said Tuesday his office has enough evidence in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom leak scandal to indict people inside the company on criminal charges.