http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-08-28/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-123327.asp By MIKE CLAFFEY Daily News Staff Writer August 28, 2001 After mauling the mob, federal prosector Jim Walden is taking on crooks in cyberspace. Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad named Walden, deputy chief of the organized crime section, to head a new computer crime and intellectual property squad. The new unit, which has four full-time prosecutors, puts investigations of Internet crimes, theft of computer equipment and software, economic espionage and copyright theft under one umbrella. Walden, 34, is a brash, hard-driving prosecutor who made his bones with a string of mob convictions, most recently that of Bonanno consigliere Anthony Spero. "The Internet and computers are just giving criminals a new venue to practice old tricks," said Walden. "Our main goals are to solve old-style crimes using new methods and to prevent the mass havoc that can be created by the new style of computer vandalism." He noted that the recent red worm virus caused its victims $5 billion in damage. Vinegrad announced the creation of the unit last week. The deputy chief is Lauren Resnick, an organized crime prosecutor who worked on the Abner Louima police torture case. Michele Adelman, who prosecuted the recent stock fraud case against shoe designer Steve Madden, is the third member of the team. The fourth member has not been named. The Brooklyn unit is one of 10 pilot projects the Justice Department is launching around the country. It's an outgrowth of a computer crime squad created by new FBI Director Robert Mueller while he was U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, which includes Silicon Valley, Vinegrad said. The prosecutors will work closely with agents from the FBI, the Secret Service and the Defense Department, as well as the NYPD, which recently announced an upgrade of its computer crimefighting capabilities. Among the first steps, Walden said, will be to reach out to the private sector to forge a relationship with victims of hackers and software pirates. The unit will get special training from the Justice Department in Washington and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. The head of the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's criminal division, Andrew Weissmann, said the office is staffing the unit with two new prosecutor slots and two existing ones. "We are not just grouping existing crimes under one heading, we are going to devote more resources to these kinds of cases," he said. "The upshot is going to be a dramatic increase in prosecutions." - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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