Albert Gonzalez, a suspect in several hacking cases, was close to reaching a comprehensive plea agreement with federal prosecutors in Massachusetts and New York when federal prosecutors in New Jersey indicted him on Monday on a new raft of computer crimes, said Mr. Gonzalez’s lawyer, Rene Palomino Jr.
[…]
Mr. Palomino said the settlement would have ended all active investigations, including New Jersey’s. He charged that New Jersey prosecutors moved up their indictment to short-circuit the settlement talks. “I guess so they could bask in the glory of all the publicity they are getting from this,” he said.
[…]
Mr. Palomino also shed some light on some mysteries in Monday’s announcement. He said “P.T.,” an unindicted co-conspirator named in the new indictment, was Damon Patrick Toey, one of the 11 people charged last August as part of the data thefts at T.J. Maxx stores, which are owned by TJX. Mr. Toey has pleaded guilty and received a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation in the government’s case against Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Palomino said that he was prepared to argue that Mr. Toey, not Mr. Gonzalez, took the lead in the data thefts in the New Jersey indictment.
He also said that one of the “unnamed Russian conspirators” named in the indictment was Maksym Yastremski, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence in a Turkish prison.
Read more in The New York Times.