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Man charged with hacking into wife's e-mail headed to trialMar 23, 2011 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A Rochester Hills man will go on trial as planned, charged with a computer-hacking felony for reading his wife's e-mail, despite a plea by his attorney to adjourn the trial while state legislators consider an amendment to exempt spouses from such prosecutions. Leon Walker will stand trial April 11. He faces five years in prison for reading the e-mail of his then-wife Clara Walker in the Rochester Hills home they shared in 2009. He was arrested in 2010, charged with fraudulent access to a computer. The couple, who have a daughter, have since divorced. Today, his attorney, Leon Weiss, asked Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson to adjourn the trial while Michigan lawmakers consider an amendment, introduced in January by state Rep. Tom McMillen, R-Rochester Hills, that would exempt spouses and parents from prosecution under the hacking law. "I want this case adjourned because the Legislature is going to speak to the lack of clarity in this law," Weiss told Anderson. "It behooves us for the sake of judicial economy to adjourn this." Weiss has argued that the law was intended to prevent corporate hacking of confidential business data and to prevent identity theft. But the judge ruled the trial would proceed. "This court has no idea how long it will take the Legislature to act," Anderson said. Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Hall also sought to adjourn the trial to allow for additional investigation, but Anderson denied his request, too. The case has attracted international attention. Walker, 33, a computer technician with Oakland County, was Clara Walker's third husband. In 2009 he suspected she was having an affair with her second husband, a man who had been arrested for beating her in front of a child she had with her first husband. Using her password, Walker read the e-mail on a computer in the family home and confirmed the affair. He then notified her first husband, who attached the e-mails to an emergency motion he filed in court to change custody of the child he shared with Clara Walker. When Clara Walker learned that Leon Walker had been reading her e-mail, she filed a complaint with the Oakland County Sheriff's Office. Leon Walker, who has no criminal record, remains free on bond. Walker subsequently filed a Freedom of Information Act letter seeking law enforcement records in Oakland County, detailing similar arrests and found none. In a 2010 case out of Springfield Township, an ex-spouse complained that her former husband was reading her e-mail. Records show the case was deemed a civil matter and did not proceed to prosecution. Contact L.L BRASIER: 248-858-2262 or [email protected] To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2011, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. |