Hubris proved the downfall of a Revere teen-ager, who kept hacking phone networks and using them to attack his enemies even after he learned the FBI was investigating him.
Matthew "L'il Hacker" Weigman, 19, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison on Friday after pleading guilty to numerous charges centered on his participation in a national ring that arranged fake 911 calls intended to bring heavily armed SWAT cops to the homes of enemies - including one to his landlord. Weigman was also charged with threatening the career and life of a Verizon investigator who was tracking him.
Weigman was sentenced in federal district court in Dallas, where he'd been tried because a key part of the charges against him involved his cracking of a Verizon data center in Texas, which let him obtain numerous fake phone numbers and IDs, listen in on phone calls and cancel the phone service of his enemies. The government began investigating Weigman when he was 15 - he was formally charged when he turned 18.
Although much of Weigman's attacks focused on Verizon, he also admitted cracking a Sprint customer-service center, where he would listen in on customer calls, waiting for customers to supply their credit-card numbers - including some from the military - which he and his fellow phreakers used to buy electronic equipment.
In 2008, prosecutors charged, Weigman and one of his friends took time out from their phone activities to actually drive up to the New Hampshire home of the Verizon employee so that they could threaten him in person after they learned he was testifying in a case against some of the other phreaks. But then he returned to his usual MO, according to a statement of facts Weigman signed (with a single scrawled "M"):
In April and May of 2008, Weigman gained unauthorized access to the phone system at a book store, which he then used to place harassing calls to WS. After Verizon identified a phone line that Weigman had obtained by fraud in April 2008, and turned the phone line off, Weigman used the identities and authorization codes of Verizon employees to have the phone reactivated. Weigman also used his ability to gain unauthorized access to the phone system to conduct unauthorized electronic monitoring of Verizon employees' phones in order to harass the employee and obtain information about the status of the investigation against Weigman.
Statement of facts in the case, detailing Weigman's transgressions.
