Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Brookfield man convicted in police radio intrusion

From: "Gregg Lengling" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 14:34:20 -0000

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar04/212384.asp

He'll be sentenced May 12 for transmitting sex sounds
By REID J. EPSTEIN
[email-masked]
Posted: March 4, 2004
Madison - A Brookfield man faces up to a 20-year prison sentence and a
$500,000 fine after a jury found him guilty of a felony Thursday for
blocking police radio signals and illegally broadcasting sex sounds over
police radio frequencies.

Rajib K. Mitra, 25, was found guilty in federal court of two counts of
transmitting communications to a protected police computer.

The jury deliberated 61/2 hours before deciding he was guilty of disrupting
Madison police radio frequencies with a high-pitched tone for hours this
past Halloween. He also was found to have piggy-backed sexually explicit
audio files from his computer onto the frequencies 12 times the night of
Nov. 11 about an hour after he was convicted of speeding.

Stoic as the verdict was read, Mitra then removed his belt, wallet and
necktie and handed them to his parents before being taken to the Dane County
Jail. The sandwich his mother brought him for dinner went uneaten.

Sentencing to be May 12
Federal Judge John C. Shabaz scheduled a sentencing hearing for May 12.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O'Shea presented evidence that Mitra also was
responsible for interrupting police radio frequencies in Madison between
January 2003 and August and in Wauwatosa in May. O'Shea told jurors that
those frequency interruptions occurred only near Mitra's home on days when
credit card receipts showed he was in town.

After the verdict was returned, O'Shea said the trial's most important
evidence was a chart that matched nine of the 12 Nov. 11 disruptions to
Madison police frequencies with audio files played on Mitra's computer.

Police use same equipment
A former University of Wisconsin-Madison business school student who
graduated from Brookfield East High School, Mitra testified Wednesday that
he did not know his Motorola two-way transmitter, which is the same model
Madison police use, was sending signals to police frequencies until Nov. 11.
When he heard the sexually explicit files playing over a police scanner,
Mitra said, he realized what had happened and threw the transmitter away.

Mitra, who holds a UW-Madison bachelor's degree in computer science and had
worked for a Milwaukee Web design company for two years, said the
transmissions were accidentally caused by two wires rubbing against each
other and the transmitter. He said the sex sounds were broadcast because he
was listening to them on a loop in his bedroom.

O'Shea said that excuse didn't stand up.

"Another distinguishing facet of this 'magic radio,' " as O'Shea called the
transmitter in his closing argument Thursday, "was that it was
discriminating. It didn't pick up any of the other sounds of the apartment.
All you hear is porn sounds selected to maximize their effect."

O'Shea said Mitra threw the radio away because he knew he was in trouble.

"From the defendant's perspective, the most valued quality of the 'magic
radio' is that it no longer exists," he said. "He knew the radio would be
the primary evidence of his guilt."

Mitra's attorney, Chris Van Wagner, said the prosecution's case was built
"on circumstantial evidence and a hypothesis presumed on guilt."

'No direct evidence'
"There is no direct evidence that my client knew he was transmitting these
signals," Van Wagner told the jury of seven men and five women. "It is not a
crime if you conclude it was an accident."

Van Wagner repeated the theme of his opening statement: that the
prosecution's evidence could serve to both convict or acquit Mitra.

"Every single piece of evidence can be interpreted in two different ways,"
he said. "It's all ambiguous. There's no key piece of evidence."

O'Shea said Mitra's closing of his bedroom window blinds and turning off the
lights when investigators arrived in the parking lot outside his N. Orchard
St. apartment building Nov. 11 prove his actions were intentional.

Signal started and stopped
Before police arrived that night, there had been 10 such interruptions to
Madison police radio frequencies. There were none in the 45 minutes
investigators sat in the lot, then two more minutes after they left.

But Van Wagner said Mitra's actions that night are easily explainable.
Because Mitra didn't realize the plainclothes officers were police, he was
merely worried about being caught in an embarrassing situation.

"If you're playing porn sounds to get yourself interested, you might want to
have some privacy," he said. "There are certain things we don't want people
to have the first whiff of."

Van Wagner also compared the charges against Mitra to the recent Iraq war
and USA Patriot Act.

"This case has been brought to you by the same institution that brought you
the war on terror and the Patriot Act," he said. "In the same way, the
Justice Department of the United States brings this case against my client."

O'Shea responded that Van Wagner's argument was a legal sleight-of-hand.

"I can tell you that the president didn't call me about the war in Iraq, and
the president didn't call me and urge me to prosecute this case," he said.
"Why is the defense doing this? The purpose is to distract you from the
compelling evidence of the defendant's guilt."

From the March 5, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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