Louisiana Man Sentenced to Six Months in Prison for Sending Virus Prompting 9-1-1 Calls

Last week, the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that David Jeansonne, 44, of Metairie, Louisiana, was sentenced by United States District Judge Ronald M. Whyte to serve six months in prison for sending e-mails to users of Microsoft's WebTV Internet service containing an attachment that, when opened, reprogrammed their computers to dial "9-1-1" without their knowledge. The bogus "9-1-1" calls prompted unnecessary emergency police dispatches at numerous locations around the country in July 2002.

Mr. Jeansonne pled guilty last month to both counts of a two count indictment charging him with causing a threat to public safety and substantial damages by intentionally causing damage to computers, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030(a)(5)(A)(i). He has been held in custody on these charges since October 2004.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, Judge Whyte also sentenced Mr. Jeansonne to serve six months home detention as part of a two year period of supervised release, and ordered him to pay restitution of $27,100 to Microsoft Corporation and a special assessment of $200.

WebTV, now known as MSN TV, was a product of Microsoft Corporation that allowed subscribers to connect to the Internet using their standard television as a monitor. In pleading guilty, Mr. Jeansonne admitted that in July 2002 he caused an email with an attachment to be sent to approximately 20 subscribers of the WebTV service. The message claimed that the attachment was a harmless computer program that, when executed, changed the display colors seen by the WebTV user on the television screen.

Mr. Jeansonne admitted that, in reality, the email attachment contained a hidden computer script that reset the dial-in telephone number in the user's WebTV box to "9-1-1."

Accordingly, the next time the user attempted to log in to WebTV, the computer dialed the number "9-1-1" instead of the local modem telephone number supplied to the user by WebTV to access its servers in Santa Clara for software and other updates. At least 10 WebTV users reported that the local police either called or visited their residences in response to the unnecessary "9-1-1" calls. An affidavit posted on the U.S. Attorney's Office Web site supporting a search warrant for Jeansonne's residence in Louisiana also contains a description of his conduct.