For Immediate Release March 25, 2003

Los Angeles, CA (310) 477-6565

COMPUTER SPAMMER SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON

A former Southern California man who maliciously bombarded the computer system of an El Segundo computer messaging company with thousands of email messages was sentenced today to 16 months in federal prison.

Bret McDanel, who used the moniker "Secret Squirrel" and is now a 30-year-old resident of Fiddletown, California, was sentenced for his conviction on a federal charge of maliciously sending thousands of e-mail messages in September 2000 to a computer server operated by Tornado Development, Inc., formerly located in El Segundo. McDanel was sentenced by United States District Judge Lourdes G. Baird, who presided over McDanel's trial last year and found that he acted with the intent to cause damage to Tornado's email server.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Baird ordered McDanel to submit to unannounced searches of his computers, to advise future employers about this conviction and computer-related federal criminal charges now pending in New Jersey, and to receive psychological counseling.

The evidence presented during the bench trial showed that McDanel, who worked at Tornado from June 1999 until February 2000, committed the crime to retaliate against Tornado (Tornado folded in the fall of 2002). The prosecutors argued to Judge Baird that McDanel harbored resentment against his former employer and that he planned to start a competitor messaging company.

McDanel sent thousands of email messages and overloaded the Tornado computer server. Additionally, the emails he sent contained a link to a web site he had created http://www.tornadomessenger.com where he revealed confidential information about Tornado technology that McDanel had learned while employed there.

During the trial, the government also presented evidence that McDanel had attacked the computer system of another former employer in New Jersey in 1997. McDanel was indicted in September 2002 in New Jersey in connection with the alleged 1997 conduct.

This was the first case to go to trial in Los Angeles brought under the "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," the federal statute covering computer abuse and malicious spamming.

This case is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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