Mitnick Codefendant Sentenced ----------------------------- By Iolande Bloxsom December 6, 1999 Kevin Mitnick's codefendant, Lewis DePayne, was sentenced today in federal court in Los Angeles. Unlike the imprisoned hacker, DePayne was not restricted in his use of computers. US District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer sentenced DePayne to five years of probation, which includes six months of home detention. He will also be required to serve 225 hours of community service (to be determined by the probation office) and to pay a $2,500 fine and the cost of any home detention. DePayne pled guilty on April 16 of this year to a single count of wire fraud. According to the plea agreement, in May of 1994 he and Mitnick participated in a scheme to defraud Nokia of proprietary software for mobile phones. DePayne admitted to placing a call to a Nokia office in Florida pretending to be a Nokia supervisor named K.P. Wileska. In the plea agreement, the approximate value of the software was set at $240,000. However, the judge ordered DePayne to pay only about one tenth of that amount as a fine. In Mitnick's case, Judge Pfaelzer set the fine higher, at $4,125, but still significantly lower than the prosecution's suggested restitution of $1.5 million.