News Items (Summer, 1995)
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It's official. The trial of Kevin Mitnick begins July 10 in Raleigh, North
Carolina. He will be facing a 23-count indictment, allegedly for making
cellular phone calls on a cloned phone. Each of the federal counts carries a
sentence of 20 years.

Assuming Mitnick doesn't receive a 460-year sentence, the feds have indicated 
that they will bring him up on charges in other locations as well (San
Francisco, San Diego, Denver, and Seattle). Every single one of these charges 
is directly related to the fact that Mitnick was trying not to be captured. So why was he running in the first place? We may finally have an answer. In 1992, 
Mitnick was employed by Teltec Investigations, a company that was being 
investigated by Pacific Bell. According to a source, when the company was 
contacted, they agreed to testify against Mitnick in exchange for leniency. 

The focal point of the entire investigation was the unauthorized accessing of 
Pacific Bell voice mail. Since Mitnick was on probation at the time and since any probation violation could easily result in prison time, he chose to leave. 
And that's really the whole reason why this wild chase happened in the first 
place. Either he accessed a voice mail system without permission or someone 
else in the company did and decided to make him the fall guy. Either way, the 
punishment far outweighs the crime, if, in fact, there ever was a crime. And in
Mitnick's case, the punishment has already been handed down; he lived a
fugitive's life for years, never knowing when or if his freedom would suddenly
expire. We can only hope this side of the story is told at the trial.