Federal prosecutors scored their first victory in the investigation of Hewlett-Packard Co's ill-fated boardroom spying probe on Friday, when a low-level private investigator pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy charges.
Bryan Wagner, 29, of Littleton, Colorado, pleaded guilty to the two felony counts during his initial appearance in San Jose federal court.
As part of the plea deal, Wagner admitted to illegally obtaining Social Security numbers and other personal information to snoop on the private phone records of journalists, former HP directors and their family members as part of HP's crusade to ferret out the source of boardroom leaks to the media.
Wagner acknowledged using a form of subterfuge known as "pretexting" -- or pretending to be someone else -- to fool telephone companies into coughing up records on former HP directors Tom Perkins and George Keyworth II, and reporters Pui-Wing Tam of the Wall Street Journal and Dawn Kawamoto of CNet's News.com.
Wagner admitted using the personal information to set up online accounts in the targets' names between April 2005 and September last year to access their call logs and billing records.
Wagner's defense lawyer, Stephen Naratil, said his client would testify for the prosecution as it pursues other figures tied to the scandal. He declined to say whom Wagner would testify against or what he had already told prosecutors.
Wagner's sentencing was set for June 20 in a San Jose federal court. There was no sentencing agreement included in the plea deal.
Wagner faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of two years on the identity theft charge and a maximum of five years for conspiracy, but prosecutors can ask the court for a more lenient sentence if they are satisfied with his level of cooperation.
Naratil described his client as the "little guy" who was tricked by other people higher up in the HP investigation's chain of command into thinking the investigative methods were legal. Wagner never had any contact with anyone inside HP, Naratil said.
In court, Assistant US Attorney Mark Krotoski said Wagner was hired by Matthew DePante of Florida-based Action Research Group to unearth the telephone records and distribute them to other unnamed co-conspirators. DePante paid Wagner an unspecified amount and provided him with the Social Security numbers, Krotoski said.
DePante has not been charged in the federal case.
Wagner, Depante and three others were charged in October in a state court with four felony counts each of conspiracy, fraud and identity theft for their alleged roles in the HP spying scandal.
The others charged were former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who initiated the investigation, former HP ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker, who directed the probe and Ronald DeLia, a longtime HP security contractor who runs a Boston-area detective firm called Security Outsourcing Solutions.
DeLia was allegedly contracted by HP to perform the leak probe work and subsequently contracted the work out to DePante's firm.
HP has declined to comment on Wagner's case because he was not an HP employee.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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