Todd Wallack reports that Stephen Watt, the former Morgan Stanley coder who provided Albert Gonzalez with a sniffer program used to steal data from TJX customers, may appeal his sentence:
Stephen Watt was sentenced Dec. 28 by a federal judge in Boston to two years in prison and three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution to TJX of as much as $171.5 million. Watt pleaded guilty two weeks ago to one felony count of conspiracy and was the first person to be sentenced in the TJX case, thought to be one of the largest cases of credit card theft in US history.
His lawyer, Michael C. Farkas of New York, filed a notice in US District Court in Boston last week indicating that he could appeal. In an interview yesterday, Farkas said Watt is still considering his options, but added he had to file the notice to preserve his client’s right to appeal.
In court hearings, Farkas said Watt played a relatively minor role in the crime and did not know the software program that he supplied would be used in such a large theft.
Read more in The Boston Globe.