Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog

As Fort Lauderdale cyber crime criminal defense attorneys, we noted with interest that a Miami man is the U.S. connection to two of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. USA Today’s TechnologyLive blog reported Aug. 18 that Albert Gonzalez of Miami is accused of hacking in two separate data breaches that exposed more than 100 million credit card records to identity theft. Gonzalez is allegedly one of 10 people from around the world charged with stealing 94 million credit card records from databases at TJX, parent company to clothing stores TJ Maxx and Marshalls. He and two Russian accomplices are also accused of separately breaching 130 million records from four payment processing companies, including Heartland Payment Systems.

According to USA Today, Gonzalez was known as part of the online community of malicious hackers since at least 2002. This allowed him to connect with hackers from other countries, particularly from Russia, where cyber crime in general and identify theft in particular are burgeoning industries. He joined a group that specialized in stealing credit card account information, which they could then sell to money launderers who use it to buy things or extract cash from ATMs using other people’s bank accounts and credit. Another Miami man, Irving Escobar, is accused of leading a ring of money launderers in that scheme, using the information from the TJX security breach.

Complicating matters is the fact that Gonzalez had acted as an informant for the Secret Service before he was charged in the TJX breach. Investigators now believe he was actually acting as an agent for the hackers, passing along information about law enforcement activities. The article said it was unclear whether Gonzalez was the ringleader of the group or an employee; the other hackers were not named, are foreign nationals and may be difficult to find or extradite. Gonzalez was taken into custody after the TJX breach, making it unlikely that he could have actively participated in the Heartland breach. Nonetheless, he is expected to face charges in that case after trial for the TJX-related charges.

As Sarasota cyber crime defense attorneys, we have read about many similar schemes involving people in the United States working on behalf of overseas ringleaders. In some cases, these people are led to believe they have legitimate jobs and are doing nothing illegal, only to find themselves charged with a crime or their bank accounts frozen. That’s not true in Gonzalez’s case, but it could be true for hundreds of other Americans who are not Internet-savvy and eager for jobs in this bad economy. We believe it’s our job as Fort Myers cyber crime criminal defense lawyers to aggressively defend these innocent people -- who are often victims themselves -- when they are swept up in prosecution really aimed at overseas hackers.

Continue reading "South Florida Man Charged for Hacking as Part of Ring Accused of Two Largest Data Breaches in U.S. History" »

A federal appeals court said last week that written sexual fantasies and cartoon images involving children in sexual situations is enough to trigger a child pornography conviction, Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog reported June 17. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a new trial to a man who was convicted of child pornography possession for both of those things, as well as for owning actual child pornography. Dwight Whorley had asked for a new trial on the counts related to the fictional email and the cartoons. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence stemming from the 2006 conviction.

The cartoon images are a kind of Japanese animation called hentai, which is sexually explicit. Whorley was convicted for those images under a federal law called the PROTECT Act, which prohibits obscene images that “appear[] to be” minors engaging in sexual conduct. For the email, in which Whorley wrote down his sexual fantasies about children and sent them to other adults, he was charged with sending obscene writing over state borders. Ten judges on the Fourth Circuit’s panel agreed that those convictions should stand. That ends the case at the appeals level; Whorley’s last option is to ask the Supreme Court to hear his case.

The lone holdout, George W. Bush appointee Judge Roger Gregory, dissented at length on both counts. The goal of laws against child pornography is to prevent the exploitation of children, he said -- so obscenity laws shouldn’t apply to the cartoon images. But he saved stronger words for the email conviction, which he said was inappropriate even though the email was considered obscene. It victimized no children, Gregory wrote, and was not part of a commercial transaction, which would make it part of interstate commerce. Thus, he wrote, the government had no interest in regulating Whorley’s speech “beyond the perceived desirability of censoring these kinds of thoughts.” In essence, he argued, the majority’s decision allowed the government to police citizens’ thoughts.

As Gregory wrote, the Supreme Court has already decided that thoughts and ideas -- even unpleasant or unpopular ones -- are protected under the First Amendment. Our Naples cybercrime criminal defense attorneys want to make it clear that we don’t believe Whorley should go free; he was convicted of possessing undisputed child pornography, after all. But we also agree with Gregory that the price of free speech is occasionally tolerating private thoughts we find objectionable. Whorley did not harm children with his email or his cartoons, and harm to children is the basis the Supreme Court stated for making child pornography illegal. If a law cannot meet that threshold, precedent from our highest court says it violates the Constitution.

Balliro, Galasso, Leskovich & Seltzer defends clients accused of all types of cybercrimes, including crimes involving child pornography. Our West Palm Beach cybercrime criminal defense lawyers are not afraid to take on clients accused of unpopular or controversial behavior -- all the way to trial, if necessary. Our team of experienced former public defenders and prosecutors includes partner David Seltzer, who served in the Cyber Crime unit of the Miami-Dade state’s attorney’s office and understands how prosecutors put together Internet crime cases. Our Punta Gorda cybercrime defense lawyers will use computer forensic experts and others whenever appropriate to give our clients the best and most complete possible defense.

If you or a loved one is accused of a serious online crime, you should call BGL&S as soon as possible for a free, confidential consultation. To reach us -- 24 hours a day and seven days a week -- you can contact us online or call 1-866-ARRESTED toll-free from anywhere in Florida.