December 22, 2009
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News: TJX Hacker Gets Two Years in Prison
The ring leader's buddy of what is consider the nation's biggest credit card theft operation was sentenced to a mere two years in prison. Stephen Watt a former Morgan Stanley employee was sentenced in a Boston court on Tuesday for his role in the TJX breach. Watt who was a software engineer for Morgan Stanley contributed to the theft of hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers. The thieves used the numbers to rack up over $200 million in fraudulent credit card charges. The ring leader of the gang, Albert Gonzalez, is being held in jail awaiting his sentencing which could bring him 17 years or more in prison.
According to court documents, the two, Watt and Gonzalez spoke on a daily basis about their sexual, narcotic, and credit card theft activities. Watt pleaded guilty to the fraudulent activities dubbed by the Feds as “blabla”. His attorney pleaded with the court for probation only was unsuccessful as the judge handed down the two year prison term plus three years probation. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Watt was also ordered to pay TJX restitution of $171.5 million. U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner indicated that her decision was based on the enormous size of harm to debit and credit card customers and Watt's own admission to the harm.
Watt and Gonzales were planning to open a night club with a portion of the money acquired from the debit and credit card theft; however, Gonzales was concerned about attracting suspicion if he used his $300,000 in cash. The two friends met online while Watt was a minor in high school. A master of computers, Watt graduated from high school at the age of 16 with a 4.37 grade point average. His criminal activities cost him a $130,000 a year job with Imagine Software developing trading software. He has been banned from working in the securities industry.