No Charges Dropped Against WSU Computer Hacker

To hear his lawyer tell it, Kristopher Lott was just giving it the old college try when he devised a way to hack into Washington State University’s student computer system and steal user identification codes and passwords.

Lott and a cohort looked upon the stunt as “a game,” said Michael Pettit, “as a mountain to be climbed, as a test of their skill.”

The university did not look upon it so kindly, especially after Lott’s friend, Richard Wolber, left a note last December warning of a computer virus in the system while hundreds of students were using it to assemble final term papers.

The university suspended Wolber and placed Lott on probation, limited his access to the computer system, made him change residence halls and forced him to perform 40 hours of community service.

But as the Whitman County prosecutor leveled charges against Lott, the Poulsbo, Wash., 19-year-old took aim Wednesday at a target as central to the university as computer technology: the University Conduct Board.

Claiming he faced the “double jeopardy” of being punished twice for the same offense, he asked that the felony charges of computer trespass, theft and malicious mischief be dropped along with a misdemeanor charge of criminal conspiracy.

“He’s been prosecuted, convicted and punished by WSU,” Pettit argued. “It’s unconstitutional to prosecute him again or punish him again.”

Whitman County Superior Court Judge Wallis Friel disagreed, saying the university conduct process and the court system have separate purposes. Agreeing with Deputy Prosecutor Darla Copeland Grose, Friel said the university aims chiefly to educate and protect its members, while the court system seeks to punish.

His decision amounted to a dodged bullet for both the university and the county.

If the university’s eviction of, say, a rapist, were to be considered punitive, the county would be unable to prosecute him. By the same standard, if the county prosecuted a rapist, the university would not be able to evict him.

“So what do you have?” Friel said. “You have a school full of murderers, rapists and arsonists if they haven’t been put away by the criminal system.”

“If you lose one or the other, you have chaos,” said Copeland Grose.

From 250 to 300 students a year appear before the conduct board for violations ranging from showing up drunk at football games to slugging roommates. The board aims chiefly at “educating” transgressors through sanctions such as community service and, at worse, expulsion.

If both the school and court proceedings were punitive, then there may be double jeopardy under a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case cited by Pettit, Copeland Grose said. But that wasn’t the case here, she said.

With his motion to dismiss denied, Lott is scheduled to stand trial in late November or early December. Wolber, who faces an additional charge of harassment for leaving a threatening note in the computing system, is discussing a possible plea arrangement, Copeland Grose said.

WSU’s Department of Information Technology, meanwhile, has beefed up security in the computer system. The changes include software and staff training to detect and monitor attacks, said assistant director Jim Haugen.

, DataTimes