Legion of Angels News Archive

PHILADELPHIA – A federal judge questioned why a white Ivy League student found during a computer hacking probe with thousands of images of child pornography was not charged with that crime, sparing him a decade-long prison sentence that a black convicted child pornographer faced at the same hearing.

University of Pennsylvania senior Ryan Goldstein, 22, of Ambler, was sentenced 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 U.S. 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 Web site, prosecutors said.

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,” U.S. 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 misdemeanor 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.

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 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.

Source — Yahoo!

OCALA, Fla. — Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison on tax charges Thursday, a victory for prosecutors who sought to make an example of the action star by aggressively pursuing the maximum penalty.

Snipes’ lawyers had spent much of the day in court offering dozens of letters from family members, friends — even fellow actors Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington — attesting to the good character of the “Blade” star and asking for leniency. They argued he should get only probation because his three convictions were all misdemeanors and the actor had no previous criminal record.

But U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges said Snipes exhibited a “history of contempt over a period of time” for U.S. tax laws, and granted prosecutors the three year sentence they requested — one year for each of Snipes’ convictions of willfully failing to file a tax return.

“In my mind these are serious crimes, albeit misdemeanors,” Hodges said.

Snipes apologized while reading from a written statement for his “costly mistakes,” but never mentioned the word taxes.

“I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance,” Snipes said.

Snipes said his wealth and celebrity attracted “wolves and jackals like flies are attracted to meat.” He called himself “well-intentioned, but miseducated.”

Snipes was the highest-profile criminal tax target in years, and prosecutors called for a heavy sentence to deter others from trying to obstruct the IRS. The government alleged Snipes made at least $13.8 million for the years in question and owed $2.7 million in back taxes.

Snipes was acquitted in February of five additional charges, including felony tax fraud and conspiracy. Snipes’ co-defendants, Douglas P. Rosile and Eddie Ray Kahn, were convicted on both those counts. Kahn, who refused to defend himself in court, was sentenced to 10 years, while Rosile received 54 months. Both will serve three years of supervised release. Snipes will serve one year of supervised release.

Snipes and Rosile remain free and will be notified when they are to surrender to authorities.

Kahn was the founder of American Rights Litigators, and a successor group, Guiding Light of God Ministries, that purported to help members legally avoid paying taxes. Rosile, a former accountant who lost his licenses in Ohio and Florida, prepared Snipes’ paperwork.

Snipes maintained in a years-long battle with the IRS he did not have to pay taxes, using fringe arguments common to “tax protesters” who say the government has no legal right to collect. After joining Kahn’s group, the government said Snipes instructed his employees to stop paying their own taxes and sought $11 million in 1996 and 1997 taxes he legally paid.

Prosecutors sought to justify the maximum sentence by raising those and other details from the IRS investigation, as well as a tax loss even for years in which Snipes was acquitted of failing to file a return. Such “relevant conduct” is allowed by law for a judge’s consideration at sentencing.

Criminal tax prosecutions are relatively rare — usually the cases are handled in civil court, where the government has a lower burden of proof. Prosecutors said Snipes’ case was important to send a message to would-be tax protesters not to test the government.

Source — MSN