A Franklin man who is a self-confessed hacker has been found guilty of fraud in exchange of million-dollar bitcoin payment for tax records of then U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Michael Mancil Brown, 37, was found guilty in a Nashville court for engaging in an extortion and wire fraud scheme that involved Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The court has charged him 25 years of possible imprisonment and fine up to $250,000.
Michael Brown sent a letter to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Romney’s accountants demanding a million-dollar bitcoin ransom. He claimed to have hacked the company’s servers and have obtained tax records of Romney and his wife Ann in August, 2012 when Romney was criticized for only releasing two years of tax returns, showing that he paid about 15 percent tax. Brown claimed to have the tax returns prior to 2010 and said he offered similar terms to the local Democratic and Republican parties.
On 25 August, 2012, using the moniker Dr. Evil, Brown on Pastebin put series of posts claiming that PwC's network had been physically breached. Later on September 28, Brown threatened a full release of the tax returns online and also said that he would cancel the data dump if Romney would release his tax returns for the earlier period.
A hacking term member from PwC had broken into the terminal, extracted the files and then squirrelled it out of the building. Brown's home was later raided by the Feds and found evidence of his contacts with the firms. Although there was no mention of tax returns found.
Jack Smith, first assistant US Attorney said that, “The success of this prosecution is due to the excellent online investigative skill and computer forensic analysis demonstrated repeatedly by the United States Secret Service in this era of increasingly high tech criminal conduct.”
He also added that, “Hackers, aspiring hackers and identity thieves are identified, caught, prosecuted and convicted because of the work and determination of the Secret Service to stay ahead of people who abuse new technology to commit age-old crimes of fraud and extortion."
In 2013, Dr. Evil has been convicted on six counts of wire fraud and six counts of extortion using interstate commerce.
