Blind Hacker Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison

Eighteen-year-old Matthew Weigman pled guilty in federal court on Tuesday, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul D. Strickney, to two-count superseding information relating to his involvement in a swatting conspiracy.

Weigman, who is also known as Little Hacker, Li’l Hacker and Hacker, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, victim or an informant, and one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud and unauthorized access of a protected computer.

From 2003 through 2008, Weigman, who is born legally blind, participated in multiple telephone party line chat groups with co-defendant Carlton Nalley and other coconspirators who agreed among themselves to make swatting calls to harass targeted individuals.

They obtained the personal identifiers of certain telecommunication employees and impersonate the customer of the targeted telephone number, impersonate the telecommunications employee capable of initiating changes to the targeted telephone number, and or establish fraudulent telephone accounts.

Weigman admitted to eavesdropping on customer service calls to Sprint, by dialing into a phone line used by Sprint supervisors to monitor their employees.

He would parked on the spy line to overhear customers giving out their credit card numbers, which he memorized and passed to accomplices, and he and his cohorts used the numbers to purchase computers and other electronics

The FBI has been chasing Weigman, who relies on an ironclad memory and detailed knowledge of the phone system, since he was 12 and at times, they even courted him to be an informant.

In an interview with Wired.com in 2007, Weigman said, “I’ve been interested in phones since I’ve been about 8.  I talked to technicians when they came down here to do things on my phone.”

In 2005, Weigman staged a hostage hoax that sent police to the Colorado home of Richard Gasper, whose daughter refused phone sex with him.

The recent case against the Boston teenager began in April when Verizon security investigator William Smith, who had been monitoring Weigman’s hacking and phoning in updates to the FBI, noticed that he had used the name and identifying information of a Texas woman to turn on phone service at his apartment he shared with his mother and siblings.

After Smith disconnected the fraudulent account, Weigman turned it back on again, and then started making harassing phone calls to Smith at his home.

According to court records, Weigman was able to get Smith to pick up his phone by getting Verizon’s employees into sharing Smith’s billing records with him then using a Caller ID spoofing to make Smith think someone was returning his own calls.

“For example, Smith would call a travel agency to arrange for a flight,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit. “A few minutes later, he would receive a phone call which appeared to be coming from the travel agency that he had just booked a flight through. When Smith answered the phone, Weigman would be harassing him again.”

It is also believed that Weigman later appeared at Smith’s New Hampshire home with his brother and another party line friend to intimidate the security investigator, who then called the police and the police, arrested Weigman.

Weigman was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.