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20 Years For Gonzalez In TJX Hacker Case
alphadogg writes "Hacker mastermind Albert Gonzalez was sentenced Thursday in US District Court to two concurrent 20-year stints in prison for his role in what prosecutors called the 'unparalleled' theft of millions of credit card numbers from major US retailers. US District Court Judge Patti B. Saris announced the concurrent sentences in two 2008 cases against Gonzalez, 28, a Cuban-American who was born in Miami, where he lived when the crimes were committed. Gonzalez and co-conspirators hacked into computer systems and stole credit card information from TJX, Office Max, DSW and Dave and Buster's, among other online retail outlets, in one of the largest — if not the largest — cybercrime operations targeting that sort of data thus far. They then sold the numbers to other criminals. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in two cases related to those thefts last December and the following day entered a guilty plea in a third case involving hacking into computer networks of Heartland Payment Systems and the Hannaford Supermarkets and 7-Eleven chains."
"Heartland claimed that no merchant data, cardholder's Social Security numbers, or unencrypted personal identification numbers (PIN), addresses or telephone numbers were compromised. "
So where is the crime if nothing was compromised?
Don't give him 2 20-year concurrent sentences.
Give him a misdemeanor sentence of several hours per victim, stacked, then throw in a couple of felony charges with concurrent sentences so he'll have a felony record.
It amounts to the same amount of time, but when someone looks at his rap sheet he'll see millions of convictions on his record.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
TJX may have not been in compliance with PCI, but if you left your house door unlocked to go to the corner store real quick, and someone ripped off your jewelty (or whatever you hold dear), you'd still want them punished. And even though you'd have laid some of the blame on yourself and learned a lesson, you'd still want the scumbag thief to face the music of committing the crime.
What's the logic behind concurrent sentences. 2 concurrent 20 year sentences is for all intents and purposes the same as one 20 year sentence. SO he basically got away with one of the crimes with no punishment. If its because 40 years for these 2 crimes is too harsh, then logically 20 years is too harsh for 1 and the law needs to be changed. Can someone explain the logic to me
What happens if one of the two cases gets reversed on appeal? You want him to go free?