Computer Hacker Mitnick Pleads Innocent to Sweeping Indictment

   Sept. 30, 1996 

   LOS ANGELES (AP) - The notorious computer hacker Kevin Mitnick pleaded
   innocent  Monday  to  sweeping charges and got a new lawyer: Donald C.
   Randolph,  who  represented  Charles  Keating  Jr.'s  top  aide in the
   Lincoln Savings swindle.

   Mitnick,  a convicted hacker who is being held without bail, told U.S.
   District  Judge  Mariana  Pfaelzer not to bother having the indictment
   read.

   "Not  guilty,"  he  said  to the 25 counts of computer and wire fraud,
   possessing   unlawful   access   devices,   damaging   computers   and
   intercepting electronic messages.

   The  indictment,  handed up last week by a federal grand jury, charges
   Mitnick  with  stealing millions of dollars in software from high-tech
   companies,  damaging  University  of Southern California computers and
   using stolen computer passwords during 2 1/2 years on the lam.

   The  indictment  follows  an investigation by a national task force of
   FBI,  NASA  and  federal  prosecutor  high-tech  experts. The affected
   companies are Novell, Motorola, Nokia, Fujitsu and NEC.

   Randolph  said  he needed time to get to know his client and study the
   charges,  and  Pfaelzer  ordered Mitnick to return to her court Oct. 7
   for a status conference and trial setting.

   Mitnick,  33,  pleaded guilty in April to one count of fraud in a 1995
   North  Carolina  case  for  using 15 stolen phone numbers to dial into
   computer  databases.  He  also admitted violating probation for a 1988
   conviction  in  Los  Angeles for breaking into computers at Digital
   Equipment Corp.

   He  was  to  have  been  sentenced Monday in those cases. But that was
   postponed  indefinitely  because  of the comprehensive new charges and
   because his previous lawyer was removed over a conflict of interest.

   That  lawyer,  Richard  Sherman,  will represent a co-defendant in the
   case:  Lewis  DePayne,  who is accused in the new indictment of aiding
   and  abetting  Mitnick's  crimes.  DePayne,  who  hired  Sherman after
   federal  investigators  searched  his  home  and workplace, is free on
   $100,000 bond.

   The  prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler, said Mitnick
   would  be  sentenced  to "multiple years" if convicted in the case. He
   declined  to  be more specific, saying computer fraud is a new area of
   the law and it's unclear how high the damage figure may go.

   Pfaelzer  assigned Mitnick's case to Randolph, a Santa Monica attorney
   whose  clients  have  included Judy J. Wischer, president of Keating's
   American Continental Corp., Lincoln Savings' parent company.

   In  a bargain with prosecutors, Wischer pleaded guilty to three counts
   and  was  the  star  witness  at  Keating's  federal trial in the most
   notorious of all the S&L fraud cases to come out of the 1980s. She was
   sentenced  to  probation  by Pfaelzer, who heard the fraud, conspiracy
   and racketeering trial.

   Pfaelzer  sentenced  Keating  to  12 1/2 years for looting Lincoln and
   defrauding  bondholders  of the parent company, including many elderly
   investors who lost their life savings.