14 DAY TRIAL // Albert Gonzales, the hacker who currently serves a 20-year prison sentence for stealing the details of over 130 million credit cards from TJX and other companies, wants to withdraw his guilty plea and claims he acted with authorization from the government.
A former undercover Secret Service informant, Gonzales filed a habeas corpus petition in Massachusetts U.S. District Court last month claiming he believed his crimes to be part of his job description.
"I still believe that I was acting on behalf of the United States Secret Service and that I was authorized and directed to engage in the conduct I committed as part of my assignment to gather intelligence and seek out international cyber criminals. I now know and understand that I have been used as a scapegoat to cover someone’s mistakes," the hacker wrote, according to Wired.
Prisoners who believe they've been unlawfully imprisoned can petition a judge for a habeas corpus order.
Gonzales blames his former counsel for not informing him of the "Public Authority" defense option, where the accused can claim he committed the crimes with the government's approval.
He also says that his lawyers, Rene Palomino and Martin Weinberg, failed to file a motion to suppress evidence gathered unlawfully and to lodge an appeal following his sentencing.
Gonzales claims that Ukrainian hacker Maksym "Maksik" Yastremskiy, who was captured in Turkey in 2007, was tortured by investigators in order to give up the password to his encrypted laptop.
Evidence gathered from the hacker's computer was later used to identify Gonzales as one of his main providers of stolen credit card information.
Gonzales also wants his pleas withdrawn because prosecutors told him they would seek to consolidate the three cases against him into a single one, which the court didn't eventually agree to do.
Meanwhile, his former lawyer Rene Palomino believes that everything legally possible was done for Gonzales and that there are no grounds for a plea withdrawal.