Ghost in the Wires_ My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker - Kevin Mitnick [188]
My supporters wanted the government to respect my constitutional right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial within a reasonable time.
As I understood it, the “Free Kevin” demonstrators in these cities around the world didn’t necessarily think that all the charges should be dropped and I should be allowed to walk out of prison scot-free. But they objected to the obvious unfairness in the case: the denial of a bail hearing; the illegal search and seizure; the defense’s lack of access to evidence; the court’s refusal to pay my court-appointed attorney’s fees, which effectively denied me representation for four months; and the claims of hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for copying source code.
When people realized what was happening, momentum started to grow. The press was writing about the protests. People were putting “Free Kevin” bumper stickers on their cars and in shop windows. There were even people walking around in “Free Kevin” T-shirts and wearing “Free Kevin” badges and pins.
During the court protests, I looked out the small window of my prison cell and actually saw an airplane dragging a “Free Kevin” banner. I had to pinch myself. I couldn’t believe it was really happening.
Over the previous four years, I’d had to deal with libelous reporters, uncomprehending judges, superstitious Marshals, manipulative friends, and exploitative filmmakers fanning the flames of the Myth of Kevin Mitnick for their own agendas. The idea that there were people out there who could finally see what I’d been going through brought me much comfort.
The support was so encouraging, in fact, that it motivated me to gear up for the fight. I’d found a recent case in the prison’s law library that had convinced me I might be able to beat the most serious charges.
When I told my lawyer Donald Randolph that I’d found a legal precedent that could change everything, he said, “Let me worry about that, Kevin. I’m the lawyer.” But when I showed him the case, his eyes widened.
In 1992, an IRS agent named Richard Czubinski had used his access to IRS computers to snoop into the tax returns of various political figures, celebrities, and other government officials. He did it out of curiosity. He was charged, like me, with computer and wire fraud, and convicted in December 1995. After being sentenced to six months in prison, he successfully appealed his case. The Federal appellate court held that Czubinski, like me, had never intended to either use or disclose the information but had simply accessed it for his own curiosity. He won the appeal, his convictions were reversed, and he never went to prison.
With such a clear legal precedent, I believed we had a chance to beat the government’s case. I eagerly told my attorney that I wanted to go to trial. The strategy I proposed was this: I’d admit to hacking but argue that I was not guilty of wire or computer fraud because, like Czubinski, I had done it merely to satisfy my own curiosity.
Randolph agreed that Czubinski’s case set a perfect precedent for my defense. But there was a bigger problem. Randolph hesitated slightly before he told me what it was; I could see he was trying to be tactful. It seemed to be time for him to say something that, until now, had been left unsaid.
One of the government prosecutors had been urging my attorney for weeks to persuade me to take a plea. Over the last few days, he’d even resorted to ultimatums: if I didn’t agree to plead guilty and settle the case, he warned, the government would put me through a revolving door of criminal trials. If they lost in one jurisdiction, they’d try me in another; if they won, they’d press for the maximum sentence. It wouldn’t matter to them whether or not they got convictions because they’d have me locked up without bail the whole time.
I was ready to fight. But now my own attorney, Randolph, was telling me, as tactfully