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Soup nazi agrees to plead guilty

by on31 August 2009

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Will get 25 years in prison


A hacker
accused of masterminding one of the largest cases of identity theft in US history has agreed to plead guilty and serve up to 25 years in jail.

Albert Gonzalez of Miami was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges in federal courts in New York and Boston. He could have faced several hundred of years in prison, based on the US's strange sentencing systems which seem to involve locking people up and forgetting to let them go.

Court documents filed in federal court in Boston indicate the 28-year-old Gonzalez agreed on Friday to plead guilty to 19 counts and combine the two cases in federal court in Massachusetts. He nicked credit and debit card numbers of more than 170 million people in a sting which targeted large companies such as T.J. Maxx, Barnes and Noble, Sports Authority and OfficeMax.

Friday's plea deal on the New York and Massachusetts charges ensures that he will be behind bars for 15 to 25 years. Gonzalez must forfeit his computers, condo, car, and millions he made on the scam. He also has to get his girlfriend to hand back a Tiffany ring Gonzalez gave her and his father and friends have to return Rolex watches. He will also be restricted in his computer and internet usage during his five years of post-prison, supervised release.

Gonzalez, who was known online as "soupnazi," has been hacking since he was a kid. In High School he used a computer in his school's library to hack into an Indian government web site. He told coppers that he was addicted to computing.
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