California charges 5 in HP corporate spying case
683940
Prosecutors in California filed criminal charges yesterday against former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four others implicated in a corporate spying campaign, including a private investigator from Needham.
610283
Five people including a Korean American have been charged by South Korean prosecutors with spying to aid the communist North in the largest espionage case since the two Koreas began political reconciliation in 2000.
20554
A state judge in California on Thursday dismissed charges against the three remaining state criminal defendants in the Hewlett-Packard Co. spying case.
79904
A House of Representatives panel on   Wednesday extended its probe into Hewlett-Packard Co.'s use of   private telephone records by subpoenaing five private   investigators to testify at a Thursday hearing.
505497
By Ryan Blitstein, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Dec. 7--The California attorney general's office will announce this afternoon it has reached a civil settlement with Hewlett-Packard regarding the computing company's board-spying scandal, CNET News.com has reported.
449643
California Attorney General Bill  Lockyer said his office has enough evidence to obtain  indictments of people within Hewlett-Packard Co.  and of  hired contractors, after the company disclosed questionable  tactics in a boardroom leak investigation.
95038
State says it has made a deal with PC maker over civil charges related to methods used in an HP leak investigation.
262157
WASHINGTON -- Five private investigators who allegedly served as the foot soldiers in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s efforts to identify the source of a boardroom leak have been ordered to testify at Thursday's congressional hearing on the affair.
85314
Patricia C. Dunn, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, and four other people will be named in indictments expected to be filed by CaliforniaÂs attorney general today in the spying case at the company, according to lawyers involved in the case.
4982
California's criminal charges against former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four associates have put the spotlight on privacy in the business world and could spark internal corporate reforms or even legislation to counter privacy abuses.
695883
Prosecutors have charged 11 people in California, Texas and Washington state with conspiring to distribute more than $30 million of counterfeit computer software and products.
9556
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 .
720475
A shareholder lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard (HP) forÂ attempting to spy on board members and reportersÂ has been expanded to include charges of insider stock trading.
594247
(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
704393
(InfoWorld) - A shareholder lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard (HP) forÂ attempting to spy on board members and reportersÂ has been expanded to include charges of insider stock trading. An amended complaint filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of California for Santa Clara County accuses HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd and seven other company executives of selling $41.3 million worth of HP stock at "inflated prices" shortly before the company revealed that its investigators had used questionable and possibly illegal techniques to gain access to personal records such as phone call logs. The eight executives sold 1.7 million shares of stock between Aug. 21 and Sept. 6, according to the lawsuit. In an Aug. 31 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), HP said an outside investigator used the practice of pretexting, pretending to be someone else, to gain access to personal records. Former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn and four others face criminal charges stemming from their alleged participation in the spying, which also used e-mail tracer technology, according to testimony before a U.S. congressional committee. HP also tried to prop up the value of its stock price by announcing on Aug. 21 it would repurchase $6 billion worth of its stock, the lawsuit says. "In the midst of this acrimony HP executives cashed in," says the complaint, filed by the Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP law firm. HP issued a statement calling the lawsuit "baseless." The lawsuit "represents a transparent effort to exploit issues related to HP's recent investigation for personal gain at the expense of HP, its shareholders and its employees," the statement said. "HP will defend itself vigorously." HP acknowledged that it had obtained the phone records of 12 people by using pretexting. The stockholder lawsuit, originally filed in September, asks the court to declare that HP's executives have "committed breaches of their fiduciary duties" and to order executives to repay the amount the company has been damaged by the spying scandal. The lawsuit also asks the court to require HP to reform its corporate governance and to extract punitive damages from Dunn, Hurd and other HP executives.
395667
Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
372795
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest maker of personal computers and printers, agreed to pay $14.5 million to settle an investigation by California's attorney general into the tactics used to uncover boardroom leaks to the media.