Computer hacker tries to hire rapist: Police

[Joseph M. Reagle Jr. by way of "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@rpcp.mit.edu>]

I'm sure many people will be pleased with the term "computer hacker" to
describe someone with an AOL account getting stung...(those insidious
hackers will stop at nothing...)

  	  				 
	 BOSTON (Reuter) - A Vermont man who used a computer online  
service to try to hire someone to rape and sexually mutilate his 
wife unknowingly employed a policeman for the job, the 
Massashusetts Attorney General's office said Thursday. 
	 Harold Clarkson, 50, was charged with two counts of hiring  
someone to commit kidnapping and sexual assault. He faces a 
maximum of 10 years in prison, police said. 
	 Clarkson, identifying himself on the America Online service  
as ``Trudy21'', a 21-year-old woman from North Carolina, said he 
wanted to hire someone to kipnap his sister, beat her with a 
baseball bat, rape her with a champagne bottle and commit other 
acts, a spokesman for Attorney General Scott Harshbarger said. 
	 Massachusetts State Police Lt. Andrew Palombo, who works for  
the Attorney General's Office and routinely investigates on-line 
services, was also logged onto America Online while off-duty. 
	 Palombo contacted America Online and discovered 'Trudy21'  
was Clarkson and the victim was his wife, police said. 
	 Palombo then posed as a woman on the online service and  
contacted Clarkson, who described a variety of sexual torture 
practices that he would like to perform on a woman, said Robert 
Sikellis, the Massachusetts attorney general's chief of special 
investigations. 
	 Palombo arranged for a woman undercover police officer to  
meet Clarkson in Rutland, Vermont, where he showed up with 
handcuffs, rope, a blindfold and other devices and was arrested Wednesday, 
he said.