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Press Release For Immediate Release April 16, 2004	Debra Yang United States Attorney Central District of California Thom Mrozek, Public Affairs Officer (213) 894-6947 thom.mrozek@usdoj.gov www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac

  Former Global Crossing Employee Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison for Posting Thousands of Social Security Numbers and Multiple Threats on his Internet
Website

     A Manchester, New Hampshire man was sentenced yesterday afternoon on eight felony counts related to a website where he posted thousands of Social Security Numbers and other personal information belonging to employees of Global Crossing, as well as threats to injure or kill.

     William Sutcliffe, 42, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for three counts of making interstate threats to injure or kill and five counts of transferring Social Security Numbers with the intent to aid and abet another felony. Sentence was imposed by United States District Judge A. Howard Matz, who also placed conditions on Sutcliffe restricting his access to computers after his release from prison, as well as limiting his communications with victims of his threats and witnesses at his trial. Judge Matz addressed Sutcliffe before imposing a sentence at the upper end of the applicable Sentencing Guideline range, telling him that "if there were a crime that consisted of arrogance," Judge Matz would depart upward for it, and calling certain aspects of Sutcliffe’s defense "a joke."

     During a four-week trial that ended on December 4, 2003, with guilty verdicts on eight counts, the federal court jury that convicted Sutcliffe heard evidence that he was employed by Global Crossing as a computer technician until September 2001, when he was fired by the communications company. Soon after his termination, Sutcliffe established a website - EvilGX.com - the name of which referenced Global Crossing's stock symbol. Sutcliffe also picketed outside Global Crossing's Beverly Hills offices and held a sign referring people to his website.

     The website contained personal information about many Global Crossing employees. In addition to Social Security Numbers, the website had phone numbers, home addresses, dates of birth and other data. The website also contained threats to similarly publish even more information about additional employees, and links to other websites that discussed the ease with which identity fraud could be committed by an individual with the required personal information of another, such as birthdate and
social security number.

     The five counts of transferring Social Security Numbers relate to thousands of SSNs that Sutcliffe posted on his website. The jury in this case was told that Sutcliffe posted the SSNs of as many as 8,000 Global Crossing employees at any given time.

     As employees realized their personal information was being made public, Global Crossing filed a lawsuit and obtained a temporary restraining order directing Sutcliffe not to publicize information he obtained while he was a Global Crossing employee. After a process server attempted to deliver a copy of the TRO to him, Sutcliffe posted a threat to kill the process server on EvilGX.com. Sutcliffe also threatened Global Crossing’s assistant general counsel on the website.

     This case is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

CONTACT: Assistant United States Attorney Elena Duarte
(213) 894-8611

Release No. 03-053

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• More information on:  Defendant's Conviction
• More information on:  Prosecuting Crimes Facilitated by Computers
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