Ex-County Councilman Faces Legal Trial for Hacking Administrator’s Computer

On April 20, 2009, Tony Trout, Former Councilman of Greenville County, faced the beginning of trial by the US federal prosecutor after being charged with installing spyware program on the county-owned computer of Joe Kernell, County Administrator of Greenville, to intercept e-mails.

As Dean Eichelberger, Assistant US Attorney opened his argument at Tout's trial, he stated that once the spyware application was installed on Mr. Kernell's PC, it gave Trout some highly valuable information about Yahoo, Discover and Bank of America passwords, as reported by that GreenvilleOnlne on April 20, 2009.

Nonetheless, Trout's federal public defender stated that the particular case was related to rules and Trout didn't violate any.

Meanwhile, documents presented at the US District Court revealed that FBI had raided Trout's residence on the same day when the Republican main election was held in June last year (2008). FBI discovered Kernell's personal e-mails as well as his work records from there.

Responding to this, Kernell said that he was shocked to know that someone had accessed his credit card, bank, work and personal e-mail accounts, as reported by GoUpstate on April 21, 2009. Kernell said that he had never permitted Mr. Trout to post his details anywhere.

Later when investigations were on, officials stated that Trout agreed with the fact that he looked into Kernell's computer but then insisted that being Greenville's council member, he did nothing illegal.

Trout said that employees needed to be monitored and he was doing just that. He also said that this right of his monitoring employees was as per Greenville's policy as well as per the state act, as reported by WYFF4 on April 20, 2009.

Besides, Trout also stated that he viewed computer files only after consulting a lawyer and getting assured that his action was perfectly according to law.

Reportedly, Trout is faced with a federal indictment accusing him of illegally accessing two PCs, intercepting e-mails, posting them illegally, and hampering a probe. The investigating team said that if convicted, Trout may have to serve jail for up to 36 years and pay a fine of $1.1 Million.

Related article: Ex-husband Charged For Spying On Tycoon Wife’s PC

» SPAMfighter News - 4/25/2009