The SF Examiner reports that a judge drops 3 of 4 charges against accused city hacker

Judge Kevin McCarthy today found insufficient evidence for three of the four counts.

Prosecutor Conrad Del Rosario said he will appeal the ruling and try to have the three counts reinstated.

According to Childs’ attorney Richard Shikman, the three counts for which McCarthy found insufficient evidence relate to accusations he had improperly connected three modems to the network, “essentially an anti-hacking statute,” he said.

A fourth count that was allowed to stand was for Childs’ alleged refusal to hand over the passwords to the system to network administrators.

Insufficient evidence of “computer network tampering” has to be a major setback for the prosecution. Charging each modem as a separate count is also an interesting approach. This reads as though all three are dismissed on the same grounds.