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States Attorney's Office     Central District of California
Thom Mrozek     Public Affairs Officer      (213) 894-6947
Return to the 2007 Press Release Index     Release No. 07-143
November 9, 2007       In the first prosecution of its kind in
the nation, a well-known member of the “botnet underground” was
charged today with using “botnets” – armies of compromised
computers – to steal the identities of victims across the
country by extracting information from their personal computers
and wiretapping their communications.      John Schiefer, 26, of
Los Angeles (90011), has agreed to plead guilty to four felony
counts: accessing protected computers to conduct fraud,
disclosing illegally intercepted electronic communications, wire
fraud and bank fraud.      The criminal information and plea
agreement filed this morning in United States District Court in
Los Angeles outline a series of schemes in which Schiefer and
several associates devel