Ghost in the Wires_ My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker - Kevin Mitnick [190]
On August 9, 1999, I was officially sentenced to an additional forty-six months in custody, consecutive to the twenty-two months I received for violating my supervised release and making free cellular phone calls. Since I’d already spent four and a half years in jail waiting, my time was almost up.
Several weeks later I was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, where I was met by a trio of men in suits. I’d find out later that they were the unit manager, the captain (the head of security for the prison), and an associate warden. I knew this probably wasn’t what happened to every arriving prisoner.
It turned out they were there to warn me to stay away from computers and telephones. If I started messing around with the equipment, they said, “There will be hell to pay!”
Then I was told I had to find a job in the prison within seventy-two hours, or they would find one for me—“and it won’t be very pleasant.”
A conversation with another prisoner turned up the interesting news that there was an opening for an inmate in the Telecom Department.
“Do you have any experience with phones, Mitnick?” the supervisor asked.
“Not too much,” I said. “I know how to plug it into a jack. But don’t worry, I’m a quick learner.”
He offered to train me.
For two days, my prison job at Lompoc was installing and repairing the prison’s telephones.
On the third day, the PA system blared, “Mitnick to the Unit Manager’s office. Mitnick to the Unit Manager’s office.”
That didn’t sound good. When I got there, I was again confronted by the three suits of my “welcoming committee,” and they were livid. I tried to point out that they had ordered me to find a job, and the supervisor of the Telecom Department had taken me on.
They were pissed.
For the next several weeks, my new job was one of the worst in the prison: in the kitchen, washing pots and pans.
On January 21, 2000, in the early-morning hours, I was taken to Receiving and Discharge. I had served my time and was up for release. But I was stressed.
A few months before, a California State case against me, for attempting to trick the DMV into sending me photographs of Joseph Wernle, Joseph Ways, and Eric Heinz (aka Justin Petersen), had been dismissed, but it had left me feeling uneasy. As I waited to be set free, I worried that some other state or Federal agency might be lying in wait outside the gates to arrest me. I’d heard of prisoners being released only to be picked up for something else the moment they got out the door. I paced nervously back and forth in the holding cell, waiting.
When I finally walked out of Lompoc, I could hardly believe I was free to go. My mom and Aunt Chickie were there to pick me up. My dad had wanted to come, but he had suffered a mild heart attack and had a recent triple bypass that ended in a severe staph infection, so he couldn’t make it. A mass of reporters and camera crews were there. Eric Corley and a large, excited crowd of “Free Kevin” fans were there, as well. As we stood talking, the prison sent out chaser vehicles to urge us farther from the prison grounds. But I didn’t care. I felt like a new man. Would what lay ahead be a repetition of my past? Or something quite different?
As it turned out, what lay ahead was a whole new life I could never have imagined.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Aftermath: A Reversal of Fortune
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It’s a challenge to describe my life since walking out of prison, but the story would not be complete without this update.
In March 2000, two months after my release, a letter arrived from Senator Fred Thompson, asking me if I would fly to Washington to testify before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. I was surprised, delighted, and flattered that they recognized and respected