Case wraps up as HP investigators finish sentences
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A former Hewlett-Packard Co. ethics director and two investigators employed by the company won dismissal of the last remaining state charges stemming from a boardroom spying scandal at the computer maker.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  said  on Thursday it would pay California $14.5 million to settle a  civil case related to board-leak investigations that led to the  resignation of Chairman Patricia Dunn.
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By Therese Poletti; Ryan Blitstein  Hewlett-Packard agreed today to pay $14.5 million to settle civil claims brought by the California attorney general's office, also today, arising from the company's board-spying scandal.
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Former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn made a brief court appearance Thursday in Santa Clara County, California, to face four state felony charges in the HP boardroom scandal. Superior Court Judge Alfonso Fernandez scheduled her arraignment for Nov. 17, at which she will enter a plea to charges in the case.
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(InfoWorld) - A state judge in California on Thursday dismissed charges against the three remaining state criminal defendants in theÂ Hewlett-Packard spying case. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Ray Cunningham dropped charges against former HP attorney Kevin Hunsaker and private investigators Ron DeLia and Matthew DePante. The charges were dropped for their part in the use of false pretenses to obtain phone records of individuals they were investigating for leaking HP board deliberations to news media. Cunningham agreed to the dismissal after each of the defendants performed at least 96 hours of community service. In fact, each of them did more than required. According to each of their attorneys, the defendants did the following: DeLia, the owner of Security Outsourcing Solutions, a security firm hired by HP, performed 100 hours of community service at a veterans' organization; DePante, of Action Research Group, an investigative firm hired by DeLia, performed 120 hours at a church organization; and Hunsaker performed 165 hours at a nonprofit legal organization "At worst, the conduct in this case amounted to boardroom politics and a betrayal of trust rather than criminal activity," Cunningham said from the bench in his courtroom in San Jose, Calif. None of the defendants were in the courtroom but were represented by their attorneys. Deputy State Attorney General Ralph Sivilla said the state agreed to the dismissal. "I think everybody at Hewlett-Packard thought they were doing the right thing, the legal thing," Tom Nolan, Hunsaker's attorney, said after the hearing. "They had a serious problem and they relied upon counsel.... But as the [judge] said, they really didn't commit any crimes." The serious problem Nolan referred to, of course, was the leaking of board deliberations to the media. To trace the source of leaks, the private investigators obtained calling records of HP directors, some employees, and several reporters covering HP. At a hearing in March, Cunningham dismissed all charges against former HP chairman Patricia Dunn and said he would dismiss the charges against the other three if they performed community service. The scandal "has achieved much public good," Cunningham said, in that it has brought attention to the problem of "pretexting," or using false pretenses to access private records. It has resulted in the passage of state and federal laws specifically banning the practice. Also, HP agreed to a $14.5 million civil case settlement with the State of California in December 2006 that will support a state program focused on privacy protection. Cunningham noted that The Wall Street Journal editorialized that his dismissal decision in March showed "wisdom and compassion." Given that a Journal reporter was one of the victims of the pretexting, that's a notable endorsement, he said. Bryan Wagner still faces sentencing in federal court in San Jose on one count of conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft. HeÂ pleaded guilty to those chargesÂ in January. Wagner was hired by Action Research Group to do the actual pretexting to obtain the phone records, according to court testimony.DeLia's attorney, John Williams, said his client hopes "he gets to go back to work and get on with his life." This story was updated on June 28, 2007
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This week's HP World is over, and users at the event had a lot of things on their minds.
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By Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  SJ-0524-Hewlett-Packard-probe-by-SEC-is-settled   Hewlett-Packard probe by SEC is settled   Therese Poletti  San  Jose Mercury News, Calif.
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Lawsuits still pending HP has paid off some of the journalists it was accused of spying on in 2006.â¦
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A Congressional committee, federal prosecutors and the FBI all join California's Attorney General to investigate the legalities of Hewlett Packard's questionable information-gathering methods.
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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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Defense and prosecution attorneys in theÂ Hewlett-Packard spying caseÂ are scheduled to meet with the presiding judge Dec. 4 to discuss possible plea bargains, the San Jose Mercury News reported Saturday.
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HP to pay 14.5 million dollars to settle charges in pretexting scandal    WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. has agreed to pay 14.5 million dollars to settle civil charges stemming from a board-leak probe, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  is  under investigation by U.S. federal prosecutors over its  inquiry into boardroom leaks to the press, authorities said on  Monday, adding to the computer maker's legal woes.
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Hewlett-Packard settled cases with The New York Times Company and three BusinessWeek journalists Wednesday after being caught spying on reporters in 2006.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE   Associated Press writer  SAN FRANCISCO -- Extending beyond the skullduggery that pried loose people's private phone records, Hewlett-Packard Co.
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An attorney hired by Hewlett-Packard to investigate the conduct of HP and outside investigators has provided new details of his firm's investigation ofÂ news leaks from the HP board.
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Here's a rundown of the agencies investigating HP's methods of tracking down a "leaker" on its board.