A man who suspected his then-girlfriend of cheating has been charged with a felony computer crime for allegedly accessing her computer without permission to confirm his suspicions, according to court documents.
Timothy Ryan Johnson, 27, was indicted by a Juneau grand jury late last month after the woman discovered a “keylogger” on her computer that allegedly allowed Johnson to view private emails and pictures, including nude photographs. Keyloggers silently monitor and record key strokes pressed on a keyboard, unbeknownst to the computer user.
The woman, who is not named in court documents, contacted police in October complaining that her ex-boyfriend, Johnson, placed a keylogger on her computer, according to an affidavit. She told police she kept changing her passwords, but Johnson kept confronting her with personal information she never shared with him, the affidavit states.
During a police interview last month, Johnson admitted to having used the keylogger to access “emails and pictures she had sent to other guys,” because he thought she was cheating, the affidavit alleges.
Johnson was indicted on the single felony “criminal use of a computer” charge, which prohibits using keyloggers or other devices to intercept or record another person’s keystrokes or computer entries. That’s a class ‘C’ felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Johnson was additionally charged by the district attorney’s office with one misdemeanor count of “indecent viewing or photography” for viewing nude photographs without consent of the person shown in the photographs.
Johnson is scheduled to appear for an arraignment in Juneau Superior Court before Judge Philip Pallenberg next week. He is represented by defense attorney Julie Willoughby, who declined to comment on the case.
Johnson said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon that he did not realize it was a felony offense, and that he hopes the felony charge is reduced or dismissed.
“I didn’t realize that it was illegal when I did it, and I just wanted to catch her cheating on me, which I did,” he said.
• Contact reporter Emily Russo Miller at 523-2263 or at emily.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (39)
Add commentSo Snow, please clarify
You said he broke the law, followed in the next sentence that he was doing another female, then a couple sentences later he broke the law.
Since these dtwo things do not go together which one has your panties in a wad the fact that he broke some obscure law that niether he nor you knew about or the fact that he was cheating on you.
Just wonderin, and all. 8)
Obscure law??
Sorry, but if you don't know that it's ILLEGAL to hack into someone else's computer and view their personal info and pictures, then you simply have no common sense to speak of. Should it be a felony? I don't know. But it certainly is, and should be, illegal.
It's not about cheating or pictures, it's theft
Forget about the cheating. Forget about the pictures. The real problem is that he hacked her computer. He could have stolen money from her bank account. He could have taken her credit card numbers and used them. Maybe he has that information already and still will.
Really?!?!?
Google and the rest can monitor our comp/internet usage with no consiquences, but a private citizen does it and it's a felony?!?!? Anyone else see a flaw here?
I love how the person who
Interesting how the person who points out that our government spies on its citizens gets dismissed as a "consipiracy theorist" and the focus turns to what he/she said about traffic lights, while the main issue he/she raised is ignored. That issue being, you know, that our government does illegally spy on its citizens on a regular basis (and lies about it on a regular basis).
Felony??
While illegal, I certainly can't agree with this being a felony. Too bad they can't charge him with being STUPID.
Dude, there are SEVEN BILLION people on this planet. Slightly more than half of those are female. Women aren't quite as rare as some would have you believe. Just walk away... 3.5 BILLION of them are out there. Just walk away.
curious now...
So when does monitoring a PC become a felony?
If i put software on my minor child's laptop and when i view the logs i see that someone else used it or the kids did illegal, inappropriate things... at what point is the parent in trouble?
I ask because every there are ads for programs to monitor PC's, tablets, smart phones, etc. And when I first became a foster parent it was encouraged for teens. Heck it's encouraged in general these days.
If my 17 yr old has an 18yr old friend use her laptop then am I in trouble?
My point is this software is everywhere often advertised for parents to use, significant others to use, employers to use.
When is it illegal how are we to know?
If an employer has it installed are they breaking the law?
Is the line who owns the device or age?
FYI - The police monitor
FYI - The police monitor downloading sites like LimeWire.
There are people on the sex offender list for unknowingly downloading pornography while searching for music to download from LimeWire. If you search for say names of songs using LimeWire you can get pornography files on your computer and not even realize it. But once you download what you think is a music video the police have your computer address. You then become a felon for having downloaded pornography on your computer. This is similar to coming across pornography pictures while searching on Google but with programs like LimeWire you actually have to "download" the clip onto your computer which then means you have the pornography on your computer in a file. This is happening across the country and here in Juneau.
http://www.switched.com/2009/12/07/accidental-child-porn-download-leads-...
Interesting
Well, he had his suspicions, and it cost him. I think some people would have done the same thing to a greater or lesser extent, but nonetheless what he did was wrong. He is being punished, and rightly so. However, I think a felony charge is a bit over the top. I'm assuming there must be something more behind the story for a punishment of that severity.