San Jose, Calif. - A 22-year-old former Los Alamos National Laboratory worker accused of breaking into the computers of eBay, Exodus Communications and several other companies successfully dismissed his lawyer on Wednesday, despite a federal judge"s repeated urgings that he reconsider.
In a strange twist to the year-old case, Jerome T. Heckenkamp filed last week to put himself back into custody, so that a friend who posted his $50,000 bail would no longer be responsible for Heckenkamp"s conduct. In addition, Heckenkamp asked the U.S. Court for the Northern District of California to allow him to dismiss his attorney, noted cyberlawyer Jennifer Granick, and represent himself.
"This is my case and I have to do what I can to win," he told U.S. District Court Judge Patricia V. Trumbull. "I think this is the best way to do that."
Heckenkamp, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin at the age of 18, will now have to cram for the most important test of his life: defending himself against federal charges of computer intrusion, interfering with communications, and tampering with a witness.
But the judge, his former attorney and the prosecutor all seem to think his chances of passing that test are slim.