The leader of one of the oldest and most renowned Internet software piracy groups has pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement charges, in one of the first ever extraditions for an intellectual property offense, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg for the Eastern District of Virginia announced today.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, 44, a British national living in Bateau Bay, Australia, was extradited from Australia in February 2007 to face criminal charges in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. He pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement. If convicted on both counts, Griffiths could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he had spent nearly three years incarcerated at a detention center in Australia while fighting his extradition in Australian court. Judge Hilton set a sentencing date for June 22, 2007, at 9:00 a.m.

Griffiths was the leader of an organized criminal group known as DrinkOrDie, which had a reputation as one of the oldest security-conscious piracy groups on the Internet. DrinkOrDie was founded in Russia in 1993 and expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. The group was dismantled by the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of Operation Buccaneer in December 2001, with more than 70 raids conducted in the U.S. and five foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Australia. To date, Operation Buccaneer has resulted in more than 30 felony convictions in the United States and 11 convictions of foreign nationals overseas. Prior to its dismantling, DrinkOrDie was estimated to have caused the illegal reproduction and distribution of more than $50 million worth of pirated software, movies, games and music.

Griffiths, known by the screen nickname “Bandido,” was a longtime leader of DrinkOrDie and an elder in the highest echelons of the underground Internet piracy community, also known as the warez scene. He held leadership roles in several other well-known warez groups, including Razor1911 and RiSC. In an interview published in December 1999 by an online news source, he boasted that he ran all of DrinkOrDie’s day-to-day operations and controlled access to more than 20 of the top warez servers worldwide. In fact, Griffiths claimed to reporters that he would never be caught.

Griffiths admitted that he oversaw all the illegal operations of DrinkOrDie, which specialized in cracking software and distributing the cracked versions over the Internet. Once cracked, these software versions could be copied and used without limitation. Members stockpiled the illegal software on huge Internet computer storage sites that were filled with tens of thousands of individual software, game, movie and music titles worth millions of dollars. The group used encryption and an array of other sophisticated technological security measures to hide their activities from law enforcement.

This case was investigated by the Washington field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in conjunction with the Customs Cybercenter in Fairfax, Va.

This case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Jay Prabhu of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Wiechering of the Eastern District of Virginia.

Naval Base Kitsap's former top enlisted man pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted rape.

Kitsap County prosecutors will recommend a 90-month sentence for Edward E. Scott, 43, and his defense attorney may ask for a sentencing alternative, including treatment. He entered his plea in Kitsap County Superior Court.

Scott was arrested March 16 upon entering a Bremerton motel where an Internet chat had led him to expect he would have sex with 12-year-old twins and their mother, police reports said. The "mother" was an undercover officer.

Scott, who was a Navy command master chief at the time of his arrest, told detectives that he had an addiction to online chat rooms and was getting back at his wife over marital issues.

"White & Case received this award because of its broad-based efforts to improve legal education in Russia," said Corporate Lawyer editor Margarita Gaskarova, who presented the award. "No other law firm came close in terms of its contribution."

White & Case's educational programs in Russia are varied, and include:

The annual Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the second-largest national competition in the world;
A regular lecture series presented by White & Case partners and associates to students at more than eight Russian law schools;
Donations of legal publications and other resources to Russian law schools; and
A two-month summer internship program for law students that combines on-the-job practice and training courses taught by White & Case lawyers.

"It is important to us to be connected with the young generation of lawyers," said partner Igor Ostapets, who accepted the award on behalf of White & Case. "Working with Russia's future lawyers is very rewarding, as they are eager to learn and apply their knowledge."

The nominees were identified via surveys of students and university professors in Moscow. A special committee at Corporate Lawyer reviewed the nominees' programs and selected the winner. In determining the winner, Corporate Lawyer considered the extent to which the nominees provided students with practical knowledge and skills, interactive and innovative educational methods and long-term legal educational development plans. White & Case was the only global law firm to receive an award.

About Corporate Lawyer
Corporate Lawyer is a Russian-language legal magazine established in September 2005 and published by Wolters Kluwer, an international publishing house specializing in professional services periodicals. This is the first year the publication has given community service awards to law firms.

About White & Case
White & Case LLP is a leading global law firm with more than 2,000 lawyers in 35 offices in 23 countries. Our clients value the breadth and depth of our US, English and local law capabilities and rely on us for their complex cross-border commercial and financial transactions and for international arbitration and litigation. Whether in established or emerging markets, the hallmark of White & Case is our complete dedication to the business priorities and legal needs of our clients.

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It is the first time the court has intervened in the way abortions are carried out, as opposed to just over abortion itself.

The decision was viewed by both pro and anti-abortionists as an indication of a changing mood in the court towards a more conservative position.

"We're moving beyond putting roadblocks in front of abortions to actually prohibiting them," said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion group.

He and other strategists said they hoped to introduce bills in a number of states that would:

- Ban all abortion of viable foetuses, unless the mother's life is endangered.
- Ban mid and late-term abortion for foetal abnormality, such as Down syndrome or a malformed brain.
- Require doctors to tell patients explicitly what an abortion will involve and show them ultrasound images of the foetus.
- Lengthen abortion waiting periods so women must reflect on such counselling.

It is far from certain that the Supreme Court would uphold all these proposals, but anti-abortion activists feel momentum is on their side.

For more than 30 years, since the Roe v Wade case in 1973 established abortion as a constitutional right, the court has tended to reject any attempt to restrict access to terminations.

What appears to have been crucial in tipping the court's attitude was the retirement last year of Sandra Day O'Connor from the nine-member panel, and her replacement, at President George Bush's instigation, by the more conservative Samuel Alito.

Abortion-rights lawyer Katherine Grainger predicted the ruling would "open the floodgates" in state after state.

"The state's interest in the foetus has now been elevated above the woman's health," said Ms Grainger, who directs state policy for the Centre for Reproductive Rights. "States are going to push the boundaries and try to restrict access on all fronts."

The procedure that was challenged involves doctors partially removing the foetus from a woman's uterus and then crushing or cutting into its skull while it is still in the woman's body. Partial-birth abortions are allowed only for medical reasons and are applied to terminations after 12 weeks.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said the U.S. Department of Justice is experiencing an unparalleled crisis of leadership. He said Gonzales has undercut the credibility of the rule of law in the United States.

Gonzales is trying to explain the different explanations he has given about his involvement in the firings. Other Department of Justice officials also have given contradictory reasons for the firings, at first saying they were performance-related, and then backing away from that rationale.

Critics say they believe the firings were politically motivated and that President Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, was deeply involved.

The Bush administration has defended the firings, saying the prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the president.

In prepared testimony released Sunday, Gonzales apologized for mishandling the matter, and says he was "less than precise" in his statements.

Committee Democrats are focusing many of their questions on the role Gonzales and the White House played in the firings of two prosecutors in the western states of California and New Mexico.

Gonzales has said that the prosecutors were dismissed as part of a management review designed to improve leadership in the Justice Department.