http://www.nwanews.com/story.php?paper=adg§ion=Business&storyid=106007 By BRIAN BASKIN January 25, 2005 A Florida man's alleged admission to two business associates that he stole information about millions of people from Acxiom Corp. cannot be admitted in his coming trial, a U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday. Scott Levine, former chief executive officer of Boca Raton bulk e-mail firm Snipermail.com Inc., will go on trial in March in Little Rock. He was indicted in July and faces 144 counts related to his reported hacking into Acxiom's databases and downloading private information, such as credit card data, about millions of consumers. A U.S. District Attorney at Levine's indictment by a Little Rock jury in July said the incident "may be the largest intrusion of personal data ever." Monday's ruling will prevent the jury from hearing two of Levine's former associates, Magdiel Castro and Jeff Richman, recount an August 2003 conversation the three had with Levine's lawyer, David Garvin. Much of the talk during the 45-minute car ride between Garvin's Miami law office and Snipermail offices in Boca Raton is also now off limits. Judge Bill Wilson Jr. ruled Monday that anything Levine said in Garvin's office, shortly after Levine discovered he was under investigation, was still subject to attorney-client privilege. At the time both men believed Levine's lawyer might represent them in a joint defense, Wilson said. Castro, Snipermail's president, and Richman, a company vice president, hired other attorneys, and eventually joined the government's case against Levine. Richman testified Monday that Levine was distraught after learning he was under investigation. "He put his head in his hands and said, ' I've been downloading all of this information, '"" Richman said, before Wilson ordered the comment stricken from the record on the objection of Garvin, who represented Levine on Monday. For the rest of their testimony, Richman and Castro generally avoided the specifics of the case, though both made it clear on several occasions that Levine admitted guilt. "It's a game. I'm addicted to it, and I couldn't stop," Levine said in the car, according to Castro. Wilson said he would allow one of Levine's Aug. 7, 2003, comments into the trial, as well as anything Richman and Levine witnessed after the ride back to Boca Raton. The comment that Wilson allowed was that on the ride home, Levine said, "If there was no data, there was no crime," according to Richman. Once they reached Snipermail, Richman and Castro said they helped hide computers by placing them in Snipermail's basement. Levine told them the computers contained incriminating evidence, the two men said. Wilson also struck Richman's testimony that Garvin hinted that Levine should destroy any stolen data. "I've never had a situation like what Richman pulled today," Garvin said immediately after taking the stand Monday as a witness. "Often a very weak case becomes a very strong case when the client does something illegal when he's under investigation." Wilson said he believed Garvin's side of the story. "It would put the defendant's lawyer on trial rather than the defendant," Wilson said. But he said he was less inclined to delay the start of the trial, after Garvin said he needed at least 30 more days to analyze the data the government found on Snipermail computers. "Some of the data came corrupted... and my computer expert is ill and in the hospital," Garvin said. _________________________________________ Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) Everything is Vulnerable - http://www.osvdb.org/
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