Subject: [NEXTEL-1] http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/mar04/211510.asp

From: "Gregg Lengling" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 13:41:22 -0000

Official radio frequencies manipulated, jury told
By REID J. EPSTEIN
[email-masked]
Posted: March 1, 2004
Madison - A former University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student accused
of interfering with Madison police radio frequencies did so on one occasion
because he was angry about a speeding ticket, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim
O'Shea told a jury Monday.

In his opening statement, O'Shea recounted how Rajib K. Mitra, 25, was found
guilty of speeding in a Madison court and assessed a $163 fine on Nov. 11.

O'Shea said Mitra went home to his N. Orchard St. apartment and within an
hour downloaded sexually explicit audio files from the Internet and was
"piggy-backing" them over the Madison Police Department's radio frequencies.

Madison Police Officer Matt Wentzel responded to a two-car accident in
downtown Madison. As he was interviewing one of the drivers and her three
young children, "several pornographic-type transmissions" were broadcast on
his police radio, he said.

"I advised her that we were having radio problems and I turned the volume
way down," Wentzel said.

Technicians from the Madison Emergency Radio System, which operates the
city's police, fire and emergency response communications equipment, used
frequency analyzers to trace the transmission to Mitra's apartment and found
that the strongest signals emanated from below his bedroom window, O'Shea
said.

O'Shea also said police reported an incessant tone overriding their radio
frequencies on Oct. 31, rendering hand-held radios useless and leaving
police unable to communicate with each other. Police later traced the
signals to Mitra's apartment, O'Shea said.

Mitra, a graduate of Brookfield East High School, is charged with two counts
of transmitting communications to a protected police computer. He faces up
to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted.

"The defendant had devices that showed a singular preoccupation with the
police and with police radios," O'Shea said. On Mitra's computer, O'Shea
said, investigators found "more than 5,500 examples of references to police
and police radios."

Witnesses testified Monday that the Madison and Wauwatosa police departments
were burdened with radio interruptions as long ago as January 2003. The
Wauwatosa radio interruptions occurred May 25 and 26.

Mitra's attorney, Chris Van Wagner, said his client did not know his
home-constructed radio transmitters were overriding Madison police signals.
He blamed police for assuming a crime - breaking into police radio
transmissions - had been committed and immediately searching for a suspect.

"If your only tool is a hammer, you treat every problem as if it's a nail,"
he said.

Van Wagner said Mitra did not become aware that the sexually explicit files
he downloaded and was playing on his computer were being broadcast until,
after playing them, he noticed two previously disconnected wires were
touching under his desk.

No 'whodunit' case, lawyer says
Once Mitra noticed that, Van Wagner said, he disconnected his Motorola radio
transmitter and receiver - the same model used by police - and threw it in a
nearby trash bin.

"This case is not a whodunit," Van Wagner told the jury of seven men and
seven women. "It's a howdunit or a why."

O'Shea said Mitra's preoccupation with law enforcement stemmed from his two
previous convictions on charges related to computer hacking.

In 1998, Mitra was convicted of hacking into the University of Iowa's
computer systems while he was a student there. Because he was on probation
for hacking into a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee computer system, he was
sentenced to 40 days in jail.

Van Wagner said Mitra learned his lesson during his jail stint, "where he
was assaulted." He said Mitra was a finalist for a computer security
position at the National Security Agency.

Mitra received a bachelor's degree in computer science from UW-Madison in
2000 and was studying for a master's in business administration before
dropping out when he was charged in federal court in November, Van Wagner
said.

O'Shea also told the jury about a Jan. 23, 2003, Internet chat Mitra had
with his girlfriend, who lives in Stevens Point. O'Shea said Mitra confessed
in that conversation.

"The defendant admitted to his girlfriend that he had committed the crime,
that the crime was a mean thing to do, that the crime hurt innocent people
and that the crime involved police computers," O'Shea said.

But Van Wagner said the crimes Mitra alluded to in the chat were illegally
downloading music and monitoring police scanners to know when he would not
get caught speeding on freeways.

The chat session took place a week before police began experiencing
transmission problems and 10 months before the incidents for which Mitra is
charged, Van Wagner said.

"Nowhere did they find the single piece of evidence that said Jeeb did this
knowingly," Van Wagner said, referring to Mitra's nickname.

Mitra's radio and computer prowess, Van Wagner said, dates to when he was a
child and his mother, Norma, herself a ham radio operator, introduced him to
them.

"He tinkered with radios and became a brilliant computer scientist at a very
young age," Van Wagner said.

From the March 2, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Gregg R. Lengling, W9DHI, Retired
Administrator http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org
K2/100 S#3075 KX1 S# 57
Politics is the art of appearing candid and completely open, while
concealing as much as possible.   -States: The Bene Gesserit View

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