Hacker avoids porn charge

2008-10-23 11:02

Philadelphia - A federal judge questioned why a white college student, who the FBI says worked with a New Zealand teenager to hijack computers worldwide and who was found with thousands of images of child pornography, was spared a decade-long prison sentence that a black convicted child pornographer faced at the same hearing.

University of Pennsylvania student Ryan Goldstein, 22, was sentenced on Tuesday to three months in prison and five years of probation for a hacking scheme that caused a Penn engineering school server to crash in 2006.

Assistant US Attorney Michael Levy said the decision not to charge Goldstein for the child pornography was appropriate given his extensive cooperation.

Voicing concerns about fairness, the judge took the unusual step of sentencing Goldstein alongside a Philadelphia man, Derrick Williams, who was facing eight to 10 years in prison for child pornography in an unrelated case.

Both men were found with several thousand images of child pornography, and each had copied some of the images, though Williams had also posted about 15 of them on a website, prosecutors said.

Sentencing disparaties

The judge said he could not help noting that Williams is black and Goldstein is white.

"This has weighed very heavily on my mind, as I think it would most judges," US District Judge Michael Baylson said. "That's why I've brought this case together with the Williams case."

However, he said the sentencing disparities were not connected to race. Baylson gave Williams a two-year prison term, noting his steady work history and minor criminal record.

Goldstein pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge and spent long hours helping the FBI investigate a worldwide hacking enterprise, lawyers for both sides agreed.

But even as he was cooperating, Goldstein twice engaged in unspecified mischief with FBI computers, Baylson said.

"It was very detrimental to the investigation," said Baylson, who heard details of the misconduct behind closed doors at the start of the sentencing hearing. "It's very disturbing."

According to the FBI, Goldstein worked with a New Zealand teen who allegedly gained control of thousands of computers and amassed them into clusters known as botnets.

'Bright but asocial child'

Owen Thor Walker, known by the online name "AKILL", was ordered this summer to pay more than $11 000 in fines in New Zealand but avoided a conviction so he can help police solve computer crimes.

Goldstein acknowledged at the hearing that he has been viewing child pornography since he was 11 or 12.

A therapist who testified on Tuesday described him as a bright but asocial child who spent long hours on the computer and rarely played with friends.

"Unfortunately, I didn't begin to emerge from that computer world until the FBI knocked on my door," Goldstein told the judge. "This actually may have saved me from a life of computer addiction."

The case was part of an international crackdown on hackers who steal credit card information, manipulate stock trades and even crash industry computers, authorities said.

Goldstein's parents, who attended the hearing, declined comment afterward, as did lawyers for both sides. Williams and his lawyer, Max Kramer, also declined comment.

- AP