PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS hired by Hewlett Packard to find out how journalists were getting hold of secret information have been forced to cough up $3,000 in 'equitable monetary relief' to a News.com hack.
Investigators at Action Research Group Joseph and Mathew Depante were said to have duped phone company employees into handing over the confidential telephone records of reporter Dawn Kawamoto.
The pair were originally ordered to pay $67,000 but the amount was reduced due to their inability to pay the larger sum.
Mathew Depante also pleaded 'no contest' to a charge of fraudulent wire communications and was ordered to do 96 hours of community service.
HP chairman Patricia Dunn, who resigned in September 2006 following the kerfuffle over the spying, also faced criminal proceedings relating to the affair but the charges were dropped after she apologised to the reporters involved. µ
L'Inq
News.com
Hang on, the CEO of an international company made excuses and that was enough to drop the charges ?
What's the chance that such a gimmick could work if I get caught speeding on a highway with absolutely nobody around me for miles ?
I mean heck, she gave the orders and authorized payment for two spies to rifle through a person's private life without any court order to justify it, then she just flashes some expensive heels and her best smile, says "sorry, won't do it again" and off she goes ?
Pfft. Talk about justice...
...could take a leaf from their book and reduce the fines given to poor criminals, as has happened in this case.

I wonder whether appeals could refer to this ruling - it seems bizarre that professional career criminals are treated more leniently than grannies or teenagers.