Fed prosecutors secure first win in HP spy case

A low-level private investigator on Friday pleaded guilty to the two felony counts of conspiracy and identity theft, the first conviction arising from the Hewlett-Packard Co. "pretexting" scandal, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.

As part of a deal under which he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in the rest of the case, a private investigator, Bryan Wagner of Littleton, Colorado pleaded guilty to one felony count of aggravated identity theft, and the other of conspiracy, both carrying fines of up to $250,000 or the twice the value of the property involved.

During his initial appearance in San Jose federal court, the 29 year old investigator who worked for HP as the company tried to root out the source of leaks from its board to the media, admitted to obtain Social Security numbers and other personal information without authorization to snoop on the private phone records and other private affairs of journalists, former HP directors, and their family members, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

"In pleading guilty to two felony counts, Wagner admitted that he was paid as part of a conspiracy that made fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other confidential information to obtain the personal phone records of reporters and HP officials, as well as the personal records of these individuals' family members," according to a press release issued by the Department of Justice.

Wagner acknowledged that while participating in HP's internal probe into leaks from the board room to the media last year, he used a form of subterfuge known as "pretexting," or fake identity, to fool telephone companies to obtain phone records of a Wall Street Journal reporter to help HP identify a boardroom leaker, and accessing private information using the reporter's Social Security number.

He confessed using a fake identify to get phone numbers of former HP directors Tom Perkins and George Keyworth II, as well as reporters Pui-Wing Tam of The Wall Street Journal and Dawn Kawamoto of CNet's News.com.

The board-room leak scandal emerged in September 2006 when HP initially disclosed that it had undertaken a probe to uncover the source of board room leaks to the media.

Wagner has agreed to help the U.S. Attorney's office investigate and prosecute others connected to the scandal that led to the resignation of HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, and in return he could get a more lenient sentence than the maximum seven years in prison demanded by the two charges.

Sentencing of Wagner, who remains out of custody, is schedules for June 20.

Others charged in the criminal complaints filed by the California attorney general in Santa Clara County Superior Court include former HP chief ethics officer, Kevin Hunsaker, Patricia Dunn, HP's former chairman and Ronald DeLia, an HP security contractor who runs Security Outsourcing Solutions, a Boston-area private investigative firm.

The Palo Alto, California-based HP has declined to comment because Wagner was not an HP employee.