14 DAY TRIAL // The case against 55-year-old John Kane and his co-defendant, Andre Nestor, 44, has been dismissed after federal prosecutors determined that “in the interest of justice it should not go forward.”
The two identified a vulnerability in the firmware of International Game Technology’s Game King video poker machines that allowed them to replay a winning hand at a much higher value. They made serious amounts of money at various casinos before being arrested in 2009.
In early 2011, they were charged with wire fraud and computer fraud. The hacking charge was dropped in May 2013 after prosecutors lost a pre-trial argument regarding the applicability of the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
Now, according to Wired, the wire fraud charges have also been dropped. A judge has approved the government’s motion and the case has been closed.
Kane and Nestor’s defense argued that the two didn’t actually do anything illegal. In order to exploit the firmware bug, they simply pressed the machine’s buttons in a certain sequence.
The prosecution initially argued that the sequence of buttons was complex and what the suspects did was actually a form of hacking.
However, Kane’s lawyer, Andrew Leavitt, told Wired earlier this year that the two were “legally entitled to push” the sequence of buttons that allowed them to play back winning hands.
The bug that allowed Kane and Nestor to make a lot of money had existed for seven years before being discovered. It plagued not only Game King, but also nine other machines from the same vendor.
Kane was an avid video poker player when he stumbled upon the bug. He didn’t search for it. “He accidentally hit a button too soon,” Leavitt told Wired.