U.S. Attorney Reorganizes Office

David Hickton announced that he is restructuring the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh in an effort to better distribute crimes the office handles throughout the staff. Hickton, the U.S. Attorney for Western PA, will reorganize the Criminal Division into four new sections: Civil Rights and Exploitation, National Security, Violent Crimes and Fraud and Corruption. He also established an Executive Committee of attorneys that will meet with office leadership to address training, planning, diversity, and case review. The changes will take effect on October 24th.

Hickton says the new Civil Rights section will show the office's obligation to addressing hate crimes. "It will send a message inside and outside this office, to the community at large, that we believe that civil rights violations and hate crimes are unacceptable...and that we intend to make it a priority to stop them."

He also says that, although he has created two new positions to make sure his office meets ethical obligations, he has not seen any misconduct from his staff. Hickton says that the posts are mainly to help improve the already high professionalism he has experienced.

The office currently employs 51 assistant attorneys and 60 support staff. And prosecutes civil and criminal cases on behalf of the U.S. in the western part of Pennsylvania.

Feds Reviewing Torture Murder of Greensburg Woman

The Acting U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania is reviewing the torture murder of a mentally disabled woman from Greensburg under a new federal law banning hate crimes against people with disabilities. Robert Cessar says it's too early to tell if his office will file charges against any or all of the six suspects under the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act signed by President Obama in October.
The 6 suspects: 3 men, 2 women and a 17 year old female, all from Greensburg, face murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in Westmoreland County Court in last week's death of 30 year old Jennifer Daugherty. Her body was found in a trash can in the parking lot of Greensburg Salem Middle School.
Cessar says he needs to do more research to determine whether his office might file an extra charge against the suspects or bring the entire case into federal court.

Master Hacker Faces Stiff Sentence

Max Ray Vision, a mastermind computer hacker was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison today and ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution for stealing more than a million bank and credit card numbers. Vision, formerly named Butler, at one time voluntarily cooperated with the FBI. But he turned to hacking the kinds of systems he once helped protect and according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke Dembosky, credit card companies Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover attributed more than $86 million in fraudulent purchases to credit card numbers found in Vision’s possession. Vision’s attorney Michael Novara noted that Vision saw less than a million dollars in personal financial gain.

The 13-year sentence is the longest sentence handed down for hacking in the United States to date. In a Federal courtroom in Pittsburgh, U.S. District Judge Maurice Cohill asked Vision if he had anything to say on his own behalf and Vision explained that he got caught up in the thrill of hacking, but had changed and no longer found it appealing. Novara called the sentence excessive for someone like Vision whose talents could be used for the greater good.

Dembosky says it was a four year effort to infiltrate the criminal network and identify and move in on Vision. He called the sentence bittersweet because of the waste of Vision’s intellect and talent, and the importance of bringing a measure of justice to the victims. He hopes Vision uses his gifts to benefit other people as he has done at times in the past. It has been intimated that Vision is cooperating with other federal investigations.

Wecht Off Hook

Federal fraud charges against former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht have been dropped. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan asked a judge to dismiss the remaining 14 charges against Wecht saying she no longer felt she had enough evidence to get a conviction. Last year a federal jury was declared to be hung on more than 80 counts. Last month a judge ruled that key evidence was gathered under a search warrant that was too broad and could not be used in court. Buchanan says without that evidence it would be very hard to prosecute but she says her mind has not changed on the validity of the case. Buchanan says, “If I could have a do-over, I'd still bring the case. This was a use of county resources. A use of our taxpayer dollars for private gain. That’s fraud. That’s a crime.” The prosecution had alleged that Wecht used county employees and assets to further his private pathology business. Buchanan says the judges evidentiary ruling will be used as a teaching tool for new prosecutors entering the office. She says, "This is something I doubt will ever happen again in the Western District of Pennsylvania."