The United States Attorney's Offices for the Northern and Southern
Districts of California announced that Jerome T. Heckenkamp, 24, of
Los Angeles, pled guilty today in federal court in San Jose to gaining
unauthorized access and recklessly damaging computer systems of several
high-technology companies, including eBay in San Jose and Qualcomm in
San Diego, as a graduate student in computer science at the University
of Wisconsin in 1999.
Mr. Heckenkamp's guilty pleas result from felony charges filed against
him in both the Northern and Southern Districts of California. On March
13, 2002, a Grand Jury in the Northern District of California returned
a sixteen-count indictment charging
him with computer intrusions, unlawful interception of electronic communications,
and witness tampering. On September 5, 2002, a Grand Jury in the Southern
District of California returned a ten-count indictment
charging him with computer intrusions and unlawful interception
of electronic communications. The cases were consolidated in the United
States District Court for the Northern District of California in March
2003. Under the terms of a Plea Agreement
joined by the United States Attorney's Offices for both districts, Mr.
Heckenkamp pled guilty to one count from each of those indictments,
each charging Unauthorized Access into a Computer Recklessly Causing
Damage, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(B).
The maximum statutory penalty for each count of conviction is five years
imprisonment, a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross loss, a three year
term of supervised release, a mandatory special assessment of $100,
and restitution. However, the actual sentence will be dictated by the
Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of factors,
and will be imposed in the discretion of the Court. Mr. Heckenkamp is
scheduled to be sentenced on May 10, 2004 at 9:00 a.m. before United
States District Judge James Ware in San Jose.
In pleading guilty, Mr. Heckenkamp admitted that he gained unauthorized
access to eBay computers during February and March 1999. Using this
unauthorized access, Mr. Heckenkamp admitted that he defaced an eBay
Web page using the name "MagicFX," and that he installed "trojan"
computer programs or programs containing malicious code masked
inside apparently harmless programs on the eBay computers that
secretly captured usernames and passwords that Mr. Heckenkamp later
used to gain unauthorized access into other eBay computers.
Mr. Heckenkamp also admitted that he gained unauthorized access to Qualcomm
computers in San Diego in late 1999 using a computer from his dorm room
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Once he gained this unauthorized
access, Mr. Heckenkamp admitted that he installed multiple "trojans"
programs which captured usernames and passwords he later used to gain
unauthorized access into more Qualcomm computers. Mr. Heckenkamp also
agreed that the Court could consider losses from other indicted counts
in determining his sentence, including unauthorized access to computer
systems of Exodus Communications, Juniper Networks, Lycos, and Cygnus
Solutions.
Since their consolidation, the cases have been overseen by the Computer
Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States Attorney's
Office for the Northern District of California. The cases resulted from
a multi-year investigation by special agents of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's Computer Intrusion Squads in the Northern and Southern
Districts of California. Mark L. Krotoski is the Assistant U.S. Attorney
who is prosecuting the case.
Each of the victim companies cooperated in the investigation.
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney's Office's
website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can. Related court documents and information
may be found on the District Court website at www.cand.uscourts.gov
or on http://pacer.cand.uscourts/gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed
to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross W. Nadel at (415) 436-6778, or Assistant
U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415) 436-7181.
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