(HOUSTON) – A former contract employee of the Calpine Corporation has been sentenced to prison for stealing the identity of a Calpine Executive, acting United States Attorney Tim Johnson and FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Andrew R. Bland III announced today.
Robert Smith, 28, who pleaded guilty in September 2008 to identity theft, was sentenced today by United States District Judge David Hittner to 12 months and one day in federal prison to be followed by a three-year-term of supervised release. At his re-arraignment hearing in September 2008, Smith admitted that from mid-2006 through April 29, 2007, while assigned to Calpine as a contract employee to maintain desktop computer support services and entrusted with administrative privileges to perform these tasks, he exceeded his authorization by “mapping” the executive assistant’s computer over the company’s network to his own computer.
“Mapping” is the creation of a connection from one computer to another on the same local network. This created connection enables one to access the contents of another computer on the network which is not physically connected. Smith obtained biographical and financial data belonging to Calpine’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources then used the executive’s information to apply for and receive fraudulent loans from various online financial loan institutions for a total of $6,054.31. In addition, the court ordered Smith to pay $27,944 in restitution to Calpine for the damages incurred as a result of the intrusion.
Smith, who has been on bond since his arrest on these charges, will be permitted to remain on bond pending the issuance of an order to surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be designated in the near future.
The investigation leading to the charges against Smith was conducted by the FBI and was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Bret W. Davis.
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Attempting to steal the ID of the Senior Vice President of Human Resources seems like a horrible stupid idea...given that an HR executive might know a thing or two about ID theft.
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