Journalist who allegedly helped hackers
makes final pitch to jury
Send a link to a friend
[October 07, 2015]
By Sharon Bernstein
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A lawyer
for journalist Matthew Keys, accused of aiding members of the Anonymous
hacking collective, told a jury on Tuesday that the U.S. government had
not proven the criminal charges it filed over the incident.
|
Keys was indicted in 2013 on three criminal counts, including
conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer. The indictment
accused Keys of giving hackers access to Tribune Co. computer
systems in December 2010. Keys had just left a job at a
Tribune-owned television station in Sacramento, Calif., after a
dispute with a supervisor.
A story on the Tribune's Los Angeles Times website was soon altered
by one of those hackers, the indictment said. A Tribune spokesman
declined to comment.
The alleged events in the indictment occurred before Keys joined
Thomson Reuters as a Reuters.com editor in 2012, and a month after
Keys was charged he said Reuters dismissed him. A Thomson Reuters
representative declined to comment.
Keys went to trial in a Sacramento federal courtroom last week, and
Keys's attorneys called no witnesses. Both sides on Tuesday
delivered their closing arguments.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Oct/07/images/ads/current/stacy_sda_121014.png) The government introduced evidence that Keys had told hackers in an
online chatroom: "I want you to fuck some shit up."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hemesath said Keys was clearly a player
in what happened.
"He passed along a password, and then he told them what to do,"
Hemesath said.
But Keys's lawyer, Jason Leiderman, said prosecutors had not proved
beyond a reasonable doubt that Keys knew they were hackers who would
act at his urging. Leiderman said Keys was operating as a
professional reporter trying to gather information about members of
Anonymous.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Oct/07/images/ads/current/Lincoln_Park_lda_092315.png)
Anonymous is an amorphous group that often conducts multiple hacking
campaigns at once.
"This is a journalist trying to get a story," Leiderman said.
The government also played videotaped excerpts of an interview Keys
gave to FBI agents when they visited his apartment early one
morning, before he was charged.
Asked if he used his Tribune credentials to log on to the company's
systems after he was no longer an employee, Keys said in the video:
"I did it. I can't deny it. I'm not going to lie about it now."
Keys had asked before trial that the video be suppressed, but a
judge allowed it into evidence.
Leiderman said that even if jurors believed Keys took some of the
actions alleged by the government, he should still be acquitted
because the damage to the LA Times website was not expensive enough
for it to qualify as a felony.
(Writing by Dan Levine; Editing by Ken Wills)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Oct/07/images/ads/current/memorial_home_sda_100115.png) |