Hacker with Asperger’s Sentenced to 55 Months for Trucking Scheme

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http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/truckers/

Hacker with Asperger's Sentenced to 55 Months for Trucking Scheme

By Poulsen August 10, 2009 | 8:48 pm

A Los Angeles hacker received a slightly reduced sentence Monday of 55 months in

prison for participating in a multi-million dollar computer fraud scheme, after

a federal judge took into account the man's diagnosis with Asperger's Syndrome.

Viachelav Berkovich, 34, received five months less than the minimum recommended

by the probation office and prosecutors, and 23 months less than the minimum

under federal sentencing guidelines. His co-defendant, Lakes, 36, was

sentenced last month to 70 months for masterminding the scheme.

" The court tried to make a fair sentence … and gave us some of what we asked

for, and did accept that Mr. Berkovich suffered from Asperger's, " says Kiana

Sloan-Hillier, Berkovich's defense attorney. " But at the same time felt that

this was serious and that a substantial prison sentence was called for to deter

others. "

The sentence comes barely a week after British hacker McKinnon lost his

High Court appeals to avoid extradition to the U.S., where he's accused of

cracking nearly 100 Pentagon and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002, and allegedly

causing $700,000 in damage. McKinnon's lawyer, and legions of UK supporters,

have decried the extradition request as inhumane because of McKinnon's recent

diagnosis with Asperger's — a mild form of autism that makes social interactions

difficult, and sometimes leads to obsessive, repetitive behavior.

Berkovich and Lakes are Russian immigrants who pleaded guilty in February to

executing a man-in-the-middle attack that let them run a profitable trucking

company without having to drive trucks.

For over three years the pair hacked into a Department of Transportation website

called Safersys.org, which maintains a list of licensed interstate trucking

companies and brokers, according to an affidavit (.pdf) filed by a department

investigator. There, they would temporarily change the contact information for a

legitimate trucking company to an address and phone number under their control.

The men then took to the web-based " load boards " where brokers advertise cargo

in need of transportation. They'd negotiate a deal, for example, to transport

cargo from American Canyon, California, to Jessup, land, for $3,500.

But instead of transporting the load, Lakes and Berkovich would outsource the

job to another trucking company, the feds say, posing as the legitimate company

whose identity they'd hijacked. Once the cargo was delivered, the men invoiced

their customer and pocketed the funds. But when the company that actually drove

the truck tried to get paid, they'd eventually discover that the firm who'd

supposedly hired them didn't know anything about it.

Based on the high losses and the number of victims in the case, federal

sentencing guidelines recommended a range of 78-97 months for Berkovich. But in

a pre-sentence report, the probation office suggested a reduction to 60 months,

owing to Berkovich's lessor role in the conspiracy: he was recruited by Lakes,

who paid him a " very small " percentage of the proceeds from the fraud, says

Sloan-Hillier. (Lakes' attorney declined to comment.)

Berkovich was particularly susceptible to recruitment because he suffers from

Asperger's, Sloan-Hillier says. " We're not excusing his behavior, " says

Sloan-Hillier. " He's taken responsibility, and he knows that he shouldn't have

gotten involved with this. … But some people are more vulnerable than others. "

Born in Novosibirsk, Russia in southwestern Siberia, Berkovich grew up a loner,

and suffered beatings by street thugs, the lawyer says. In 1999, he immigrated

illegally into the U.S. and settled in the Los Angeles area, but found himself

unable to maintain serious employment. He was flirting with homelessness when

Lakes befriended him and eventually pulled him into the computer fraud,

according to court filings by Sloan-Hillier.

Sloan-Hillier asked a psychiatrist to examine Berkovich after noticing

mannerisms that she recognized as possible signs of a disorder. She filed the

doctor's findings under seal, and asked U.S. District Judge Walter for a

sentence of 24-months.

Walter gave Berkovich a much smaller reduction, but ordered the Bureau of

Prisons to give him an evaluation.

The judge also ordered Berkovich to pay $2,773,074 in restitution to

approximately 300 victims. " He actually offered to drive their trucks for free

and paint their houses, " says Sloan-Hillier. " Obviously, that's not how the

system works. "

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles say they've recovered $1.4 million from

Lakes.

Monday's sentence suggests that federal courts are willing to consider

Asperger's as a factor when handing down a hacking sentence, but still begin

with the sentencing guidelines, which use financial loss and the number of

victims as the primary factors in setting a sentence.

British hacker McKinnon faces anywhere from six months to six-and-a-half

years in prison under the guidelines, depending mostly on how much damage he

caused, if any. (His supporters, and the British press, tend to inflate the

possible sentence to 60 or 70 years.)

In April 2003 McKinnon rejected a written plea offer that would have given him

six months to a year in a U.S. low security prison, followed by a transfer back

to the UK, where he would have been eligible for parole six months later.