California's attorney general has announced indictments against Hewlett-Packard's ousted chairwoman Patricia Dunn and former ethics lawyer Kevin Hunsaker for their roles in a snowballing boardroom espionage scandal.
SAN FRANCISCO: California's attorney general has announced indictments against Hewlett-Packard's ousted chairwoman Patricia Dunn and former ethics lawyer Kevin Hunsaker for their roles in a snowballing boardroom espionage scandal.
"In this misguided effort, people inside and outside HP violated privacy rights and broke state law. Those who cross the legal line must be held accountable," Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Wednesday.
Three private detectives involved in the US computer equipment giant's alleged spying operations were also indicted, Lockyer said.
Dunn and Hunsaker were indicted along with Ronald DeLia, Matthew Depante and Bryan Wagner, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said at a press conference in the state capital of Sacramento.
Lockyer asked the court for warrants to arrest those accused.
"One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its way and its board sought to find out who leaked confidential information to the press," Lockyer said.
A felony criminal complaint filed in a Silicon Valley courthouse charged Dunn, Hunsaker and the investigators "with crimes in connection with the HP pretexting incident."
They were each charged with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit those crimes, according to Lockyer.
Investigators brought in by Dunn, Hunsaker and other HP executives obtained the telephone records of nine journalists, two HP workers, and seven current or former board members, along with their families, in a trick of impersonation referred to as "pretexting".
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