For Immediate Release                                                                                                                      Dallas, Texas

CONTACT:  (214)659-8707                                                                                                                 September 16, 1999
 

 
United States Attorney Paul E. Coggins announced today that Corey Lindsly and Calvin Cantrell were sentenced today in federal court by the Honorable Chief District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer for hacking into  computer systems belonging Sprint Corporation, Southwestern Bell and GTE, illegally obtaining long distance calling card numbers and selling these stolen calling card numbers.

Corey Lindsly, age 32, of Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to forty-one months  imprisonment and ordered to pay $10,000 to the victim corporations.  Calvin Cantrell, age 30, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was sentenced  to two years imprisonment and ordered to pay $10,000 to the victim corporations.  Both defendants pled guilty in late spring to Informations charging criminal fraud and related activity in connection with Access Devices and Computers, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1029(a)(3) and 1030(a)(4).

Lindsly and Cantrell are the major ringleaders in a computer hacker organization, known as the "Phone Masters," whose ultimate goal was to own the telecommunications infrastructure from coast-to-coast.  In addition to the numerous telecommunications systems that were penetrated, the group also penetrated computer systems owned by credit reporting agencies, utility providers, and systems owned by state and federal governmental agencies, to include the Nation Crime Information Center (NCIC) computer.  These hackers organized their assaults on the computers through teleconferencing and utilized encryption program PGP to hide the data which they traded with each other.

United States Attorney Coggins acknowledged the courage of Sprint Corporation, Southwestern Bell Corporation and GTE for coming forward to report this hacking into their computer system to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  United States Attorney Coggins encourages all businesses who believe their computer systems may have been compromised or hacked into, to report it to the authorities.

United States Attorney Coggins stated, "This is a big victory for the privacy rights of all citizens.  Hackers who steal consumers' personal information for harassment or profit will be vigorously prosecuted."   United States Attorney Coggins further explained that "this case is important because it is the first time that government authorities successfully used a highspeed data wire tap in a criminal case, essentially capturing the keystroking of the hackers and leading to their convictions."

This case was aggressively investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Yarbrough.

 

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