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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 16, 2006

Kaua'i man makes case for innocence on the Internet

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Kaua'i police are trying to figure out how a man facing criminal charges obtained access to internal police computer data, which he is posting on the Web.

Krstafer Pinkerton is making his case — including the posting of screen shots from police computers — on his personal Web site.

Pinkerton says he is a computer and network analyst who has done work with law enforcement, financial institutions and nonprofit groups. He also has been arrested three times in recent months, and charged with impersonating a police officer, with terroristic threatening and drunken driving, among other charges.

His maintains he has been targeted by a few police officers who have a grudge against him personally, but that he is a supporter of law enforcement and has friends within the police department. He outlines his side of the issue at www.kpinkerton.com.

In the most recent turn of events, the county prosecuting attorney's office, after conferring with Pinkerton's then-attorney, William Harrison, agreed to drop all charges if Pinkerton would agree to several conditions — including leaving town, taking down the Web site, revealing how he acquired images from police computers, and writing letters of apology to three police officers.

Pinkerton refused, and the offer expired May 25.

"That's why my lawyer is no longer representing me. He told me to take the deal," Pinkerton said.

Prosecutor Craig De Costa said he intends to prosecute Pinkerton on the charges that have been brought against him.

Harrison said he could not discuss some issues in the case, but said that he participated in negotiating the plea offer that Pinkerton rejected. De Costa said the plea agreement was "mutually composed" by Harrison and De Costa's staff, and while he would not directly address its specific requirements, he suggested that some provisions may have been offers by Pinkerton's side rather than demands of the prosecutor.

"We would never ask someone to leave town. However, if their attorney tells us they intend to leave town, that might make its way into an agreement," De Costa said.

Pinkerton said he might have suggested that he would be willing to leave the island to have the charges dropped. Harrison said he made the offer because Pinkerton told him he would be willing to leave the island to get the charges dismissed.

Kaua'i attorneys not involved in the case say such a plea deal seems odd to them.

"I've never seen a plea offer before that required the removal of a Web page, or that required someone to leave the island," said attorney Daniel Hempey.

Former prosecuting attorney Ryan Jimenez said he never made such requirements a part of plea agreements when he was in office.

"That seems very unusual to me," Jimenez said.

But Harrison said he has participated in such agreements in Hawai'i before, deals in which "someone agreed to leave the community in which the offense took place."

De Costa said his concerns about the Web site involve possibly revealing private information about individuals.

He added that the site displays the contents of screens of police computers. It is not clear to authorities whether Pinkerton was given screen snapshots by someone inside the department, or he was able to break into the police records management system electronically. In either case, it worries law enforcement.

"I'm concerned if he did gain access to RMS, how he did it, and whether it is a security breach," De Costa said.

Acting police Chief Clay Arinaga said police are conducting their own investigation.

"We have some concerns about some of the information he had access to," Arinaga said. "Some of that is not available to the public."

Pinkerton said he was given the screen snapshots by officers he will not identify.

"A couple of police officers came to me and said, 'Take these.' You can't hack into that system. It's a closed network. At least, I don't have the capability of getting into it," he said.

As for the Web site, Pinkerton says he wants the charges dropped, an apology from the county and "a fair settlement."

"This (Web site) is going to continue to sit there if they continue to maliciously prosecute me," he said.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.