The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (11 page)

"Justin."

Eric hates that name. His given name.

"I know you've been up to some things lately, doing counter-
surveillance," Schindler begins. "Why are you listening to ATF, FBI,
and DEA frequencies?"

Eric says nothing.

"Are you gearing up for something, Justin?"

"It's a hobby," Eric shrugs.

Schindler lowers his voice. "Are you using other people's credit
cards?"

"In what context?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Eric?" Ornellas yells.

What can Schindler say? He's the Assistant U.S. Attorney who
offered Eric the golden parachute: rat on Austin and Poulsen, build a
case against Kevin Mitnick, and walk. Schindler helped create this
longhaired Hollywood monster sitting across the table. Thanks to
Schindler and Stan Ornellas, Eric now knows how the FBI works,
how it does surveillance, how it tracks phone records, how it targets
hackers just like, well, himself.

"How is this going to make us look, Justin?" asks Schindler. "We
put so much time and effort into you."

"Can I talk to my attorney in private?" Eric asks.

Eric and Morton Boren are buzzed out by the receptionist behind
the bulletproof Plexiglas. They ride the elevators down to the fourth-
floor snack bar. Eric buys a Coke and his attorney picks up a coffee.

"Looks like he's going to charge you on the credit card stuff,"
Boren tells Eric. "You've probably blown your cooperation agree-
ment, too."

They walk down two more flights to the attorneys' lounge on the
second floor. Around the corner are the red padded leather doors of

Courtroom 6, the courtroom of Eric's judge, Stephen V. Wilson.
Boren ducks into the attorneys' lounge to telephone Schindler and
tell him they'll be right back.

But Eric needs some fresh air, a walk. Four steps to the metal door
under the red cylindrical art deco exit sign. Hand on the brass railing
and down the twenty-three marble steps, straight past the entrance
lobby metal detectors.

Eleven flights up, Assistant U.S. attorney David Schindler and Special
Agents Stan Ornellas and Ken McGuire await the return of their man.

The three U.S. Marshals don't even notice Eric as he steps out the
front door.

a ■ ■

Later that morning, the clerk in U.S. District Court Judge Wilson's
court announces the three cases. They all begin with the same head-
ing: The United States of America versus Justin Tanner Petersen.

"Good morning, Your Honor. David Schindler on behalf of the
government. Thank you for making yourself available on such short
notice."

"Good morning, Your Honor. Morton Boren on behalf of Justin
Petersen, who is not present."

Not for want of looking. When Eric failed to return to the U.S.
Attorney's conference room, Special Agent Stan Ornellas paged Ron
Austin, asking for help. But not even Austin had any ideas about
how to find him. So Schindler had no choice. He had to admit in
federal court that the star informant for the Justice Department's
secret war on hackers, the principal witness in the case against Kevin
Mitnick, had flown the coop.

"This is an emergency application by the government to revoke
the defendant's bond," Judge Wilson says. "What is the situation,
Mr. Schindler?"

"Your Honor, this morning we asked for a meeting with Mr. Pe-
tersen and his counsel because the government was made aware this
week that certain allegations had been made that Mr. Petersen had
been engaged in additional criminal conduct while on bail.... We
asked Mr. Petersen ... whether or not he was in fact engaged in
additional activities, specifically credit card fraud... .

"Mr. Petersen repeated that yes, in fact he had used other people's
credit cards, and at that point the meeting was terminated to allow. . .
Mr. Boren and his client to confer, and his client has apparently fled.

"The government believes ... it's inappropriate for Mr. Petersen
to be out on bail given those circumstances."

"What was the underlying charge?" asks Judge Wilson.

"There were multiple underlying charges, Your Honor .. . trans-
ferred from Texas, that were credit-card fraud related. . .. There
were additional computer hacking related charges here in the Cen-
tral District involving Mr. Petersen's accessing federal interest com-
puters. ..."

"Is this the young man who had part of his leg amputated?" asks
Judge Wilson, who has been previously briefed about Petersen.

"Yes, Your Honor."

"I remember reading a report, because he was scheduled for sen-
tencing this Monday, and that was continued."

"Correct," agrees Schindler.

"So I am familiar with the defendant. He did have a fairly signifi-
cant background. ... The defendant entered pleas to these charges?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

". . . And then by mutual agreement, the sentencing was put off, I
take it, for the purpose of seeing if the defendant wanted to help
himself by cooperating in some way?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"And then the government," continues the judge, "on its own,
uncovered the fact that since he had pled guilty, he was continuing to
violate the law; is that right?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

Well, sort of. Schindler and the FBI had a little help. Austin had
typed up weekly memos to Special Agent Ornellas, and prepared a
meticulous, fifty-page fact-and photograph-filled brief for the FBI.
All on his own initiative and free of charge.

"... I think this defendant is most unreliable," Judge Wilson con-
cludes. "Clever, but unreliable. So, therefore, I am revoking his bond
forthwith, and setting bail at one hundred thousand dollars. A bench
warrant is ordered forthwith."

The time is 1:15 p.m., January
3, 1994. The phone rings in
my attic office.

"Hello," he says coolly. He doesn't have to say his name. I've
heard his voice before, and besides, he makes abundantly clear
who's on the line.

It's Eric Heinz, the FBI's undercover man, the hacker who sent
Kevin Mitnick on the run. Eric is a fugitive now, too. Maybe that's
what happens when you double-cross hackers.

Eric is phoning because I've been nosing around on his Holly-
wood turf, interviewing people who know all sorts of things about
his colorful life. Last September, I wrote "The Last Hacker," an ar-
ticle about Kevin Poulsen for the
Los Angeles Times Magazine.
Eric
phoned me then, masquerading as his own friend, telling me what an
amazing hacker he is. The last few weeks I've started researching a
book on the same subject. Eric's calling me now to figure out my
angle, to see how I might portray him.

His phone voice is distant and measured, nothing like other
hackers I've spoken to. And Eric isn't just a hacker. He's also a Don
Juan, with tips for aspiring pickup artists. "There's something about
long hair for tittie dancers," Eric muses. "You can't pick up tittie
dancers without long hair.

"My exploits aren't all that uncommon. It's a way of life in the
rock-and-roll scene. I'm at around six hundred. That's not dates.
That's
physical intercourse.
"

I don't think I've even gone to dinner with six hundred different
people.

I change the subject to hacking.

"How much time are you looking at?"

"I'm probably looking at three to five years. I'm not coming in.
They're probably looking at charging me with the original and addi-
tional time. Unless they want to get ugly and charge me with espio-
nage. ..."

■ ■ ■

Eric pines for the good ole days, when he was Agent Steal, under-
cover operative for the FBI, living in an all-expenses-paid Oakwood
apartment.

"I had plans for a big sting operation.... I could have done so
much for them. This could have been the biggest hacker sting ever. I
had ideas that would have been a bug light to hackers."

"So what went wrong?"

"Schindler is such an anal retentive fuck," Eric blasts the Assistant
U.S. Attorney he embarrassed by fleeing from his office a couple of
months ago. "With Schindler you can't just go gung ho. Everything
has got to be taped, everything's got to be by the book. I would have
been setting up bulletin boards, all kinds of things."

"What did you do with Mitnick?"

"I built a whole case on Mitnick. He's a fugitive because of me. I
contacted him through Spiegel [the Hollywood pimp]. He and De Payne
and I talked together. We met at a restaurant. The FBI was watching."

"What did Mitnick want?"

"His motive was information. I knew things that he didn't. I had
access to the biggest, baddest system. The thing that let us win the
radio prizes."

Eric's referring to SAS, the untraceable wiretapping system Eric
told Mitnick about.

"So what went wrong?"

"The Bureau is so lax. I told them Mitnick would find out about

me. He found out that I had built a case on him. Right before the
feds were going to move, he took off."

a ■ ■

In late February of 1994, my search to understand the hacker under-
ground takes me to Los Angeles. I talk to a detective, a pimp, strip-
pers, a Pac Bell security man, a federal prosecutor, and yes, hackers.
But there's still one hacker I haven't talked to.

The freeway abruptly ends, throwing me onto a four-lane avenue of
rundown businesses and homes. I find 5502 Dobbs, but I'm early so I
park and go into the only open shop I can find. The sparse goods on the
dusty shelves look like holdovers from the sixties: white bread, Twin-
kies, SOS pads. The main attraction is the wall of glass-front refrigera-
tor cases stocked with beer and wine. I buy a juice from the cashier
behind the large bulletproof Plexiglas cage. This is East L.A., home of
Lewis De Payne, longtime friend and associate of Kevin Mitnick.

I walk by the ragged patches of grass and up the concrete steps.
The large, brown stucco apartment complex looks cheaply built but
shows few visible signs of the recent, devastating Northridge earth-
quake. Stray cats swarm on the landing. "FBI," says a joke note
pinned on the door. I knock.

De Payne opens. He smiles.

Short, black slicked hair. Darting eyes. Glasses. He grabs a saucer
of milk and places it on the landing, scooping up one feline in his
arms as it tries to sneak inside. More than half a dozen cats scurry
for the milk like a pack of giant rats. De Payne's movements are
jerky, slightly robotic. He's slender, his tight pants accentuating his
awkward body.

"Make yourself comfortable, Jon," he welcomes, pointing to a
sagging couch. His words, like his walk, seem mechanical.

I edge past a long coffee table stacked with cellular phones, half-
opened boxes of miscellaneous electronics, technical manuals, and
papers.

I look around: the average two-bedroom unit, the bare walls in
need of a paint job. There's an aquarium, a small bookcase, a tele-
phone mounted on the wall next to the small kitchen. And the perva-
sive stench of cat pee.

"Excuse me," De Payne says politely. He stands next to the tele-
phone and dials, watching me while his fingers snap over the keys
like a blind pianist. He's giving a silent performance. I figure he's
checking his voice mail.

We chat about the smooth-talking Beverly Hills detective I met
earlier this afternoon who told me about his star contract employee,
Eric Heinz.

"The detective wasn't easy to find, and he likes it that way," I tell
De Payne. "It took me a couple of months to track him down."

As I speak, De Payne punches keys on his cell phone. Again, he
says nothing. Then he repeats a Los Angeles phone number to me.
The detective's number.

But the detective isn't in the phone book.

"How'd you do that?" I ask, amazed.

De Payne grins.

■ ■ ■

De Payne and I pull into a parking lot somewhere in Los Angeles a
half hour later. The glassed entryway is lined with green plants and
Astroturf. The interior is brightly lit, clean, an American theme.

De Payne flirts with the pleasant, blond waitress.

"If you were having dinner what would you order?" He smiles,
focusing all his attention on the waitress. Just as in his phone rou-
tine, De Payne doesn't need to look at the menu.

She mentions her favorite.

"What would you have to drink?" De Payne continues.

"Maybe a glass of Chardonnay," she suggests, returning his smile.

He's actually getting somewhere, I think, as she leaves with our
orders.

"It's all just acting, Jon." De Payne shrugs. "It's all just acting."