San Diego man pleads guilty to USC computer hack
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A 24-year-old computer network administrator pleaded guilty this week to charges of illegally accessing the computer network at the University of Southern California after he was denied admission to the school.
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A former New York computer help desk technician yesterday pleaded guilty to playing a key part in what prosecutors reckon is the largest identity theft case to date.
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A Department of Homeland Security supervisor pleaded guilty yesterday to pocketing more than $600,000 in bribes in exchange for falsifying immigration documents to help Asian immigrants obtain U.S. citizenship.
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(InfoWorld) - Three U.S. men and one man living in France have pleaded guilty to charges related to a stock manipulation scheme that included sending out tens of millions of spam messages to pump up the stock value of 15 companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. The four men cost investors more than $20 million in their so-called pump-and-dump scheme, the DOJ said. Michael Saquella, also known as Michael Paloma, 47, of Mesa, Arizona., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria on Aug. 20. Lawrence J. Kaplan, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, pleaded guilty on July 25, in Alexandria to similar charges. Henry "Hank" J. Zemla, 38, of Harris Township, Michigan, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on July 20. The three defendants are scheduled to be sentenced between late November and early February. Saquella pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of electronic mail fraud involving 15 publicly traded companies. Kaplan pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving 14 of these companies, and Zemla pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving one of the companies. The plea agreements for all three defendants were unsealed Thursday. The scheme involved stocks from companies including eDollars, Xtreme Technologies, and PokerBook Gaming. Justin Medlin, 26, of Paris, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on Aug. 20 to a criminal information charging him with one count of electronic mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and electronic mail fraud involving seven of the companies. Medlin's plea agreement was unsealed Thursday. He will be sentenced on Nov. 30. The maximum penalties for each of the fraud charges is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The stock manipulation schemes generally followed a similar pattern, the DOJ said. The defendants generally solicited small, privately held companies that needed to raise money. One of the defendants would offer to help the company raise significant money through the sale of the company's stock, and then the defendants would list the company's shares on the Pink Sheets, a price quotation system primarily used for trading small companies' stocks. The group of defendants would then gain control of a majority of the stock of the company, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators then engaged in deceptive and manipulative trading practices to boost the price and volume of the company's stock, the DOJ said. In some cases, members of the conspiracy encouraged investors to purchase companies' stock by giving the investors free-trading shares in return for buying blocks of shares at agreed-upon prices, thereby creating the illusion of trading volume and active investor interest. In other instances, members of the conspiracy bought and sold shares of the companies' stock between and among themselves to give the appearance of investor interest, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators also falsely manipulated the price and volume of each company's stock by making materially false and misleading statements in news releases and in spam e-mails distributed by Medlin and other spammers to tens of millions of U.S. e-mail addresses, in an effort to create artificial demand for the companies' stock, the DOJ said. In related actions, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Saquella and Kaplan for their part in the schemes to manipulate the price and volume of the companies' securities. Three other defendants, Steven P. Luscko, Gregory A. Neu, and Brian G. Brunette, have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced in federal court in Alexandria for their roles in related stock manipulation schemes. Luscko and Neu were each sentenced to five years in prison and Brunette was sentenced to one year in prison.
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A California man who admitted  poisoning baby food in a bid to extort $180,000 from a grocery  chain pleaded guilty to federal charges on Tuesday, prosecutors  said.
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An executive with the U.S. unit of Samsung agreed to plead guilty for taking part in the price fixing of computer memory chips.
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The former general counsel of Computer Associates, Steven Woghin, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and obstruction of justice yesterday.
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A US man who hacked into mobile firm T-Mobile's computer system is sentenced.
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NEW YORK Steven Woghin, the former general counsel of Computer Associates, was to plead guilty on Wednesday in a US District Court to criminal charges stemming from a two-year investigation into the company&#39;s accounting practices, according to people
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A computer technician who prosecutors said made possible the largest identity theft in US history, surpassing $50 million (?40 million), pleaded guilty Tuesday
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A teenager has pleaded guilty in California to teaming up with another man to illegally install adware on hundreds of thousands of PCs through a series of botnets. He now faces up to a year and a half in prison.
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A German manufacturer of technology commonly used in personal computers has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $160 million fine for engaging in an international price-fixing conspiracy that drove up computer prices, the Justice
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Authorities are trying to determine how a hacker gained access to a University of California computer that contained personal information for up to 600,000 state residents.
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A man charged in one of the largest identity theft scams in US history pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and fraud in connection with identity documents this week.
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A former top lawyer for website Monster pleads guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud regarding stock options.
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NORFOLK - A government contractor pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to sabotaging Navy computers that track locations of subs and ships.   Richard F. Sylvestre, 43, of Boylston, Mass., pleaded guilty before a U.S. magistrate to one count of damaging protected computers.
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By Leslie Griffy and Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  May 31--A former San Jose medical manager has pleaded guilty to stealing a computer and a CD that contained personal medical information of about 200,000 patients, a state Department of Justice spokeswoman said today.