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November 26, 2003
The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that Charles T. Booher, 44, of Sunnyvale, was indicted yesterday on a charges that he threatened to injure and kill employees of a Canadian Internet company through email and telephone communications. The indictment alleges eight counts in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 875(c) (Threatening Interstate or Foreign Communications).
According to the indictment and an affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint filed last week, from May to July 2003, Mr. Booher repeatedly made threats by email and telephone against employees of the Canadian company which Mr. Booher wrongly believed to be the source of unsolicited email advertising he had received about penile enlargement medication. In particular, the indictment alleges the following threats, among others:
• In a June 14 email, Mr. Booher threatened to first "disable" a named employee by a "quick 22 calibre shot to [his] lower spine," then torture him with a "power drill and ice pick" after subduing him with "duck tape and plastic shrink raps [sic]."
•In a July 6 email, Mr. Booher threatened to "slam a 10 cm ice pick" into a victim's "left ear," then "roll around the ice enough" to "kill" the victim or "take out [the] language areas such that [the victim] is rendered aphasic . . . ."
•In a voice mail message, Mr. Booher threatened to castrate employees and kill them "with a shotgun and thirty rounds of ammunition and a hunting rifle and a handgun . . ."
•In another voicemail message, Mr. Booher informed the employees that he had "a nice collection of weapons" and would "hunt [them] down" in "sunny Canada" unless they removed him from an "email list."
According to the affidavit, Mr. Booher persisted in making these threats even after Sunnyvale Police Department officers visited him and ordered him to cease. An indictment and criminal complaint simply contain allegations against an individual and, as with all defendants, Mr. Booher must be presumed innocent unless and until convicted.
Mr. Booher faces a maximum statutory penalty five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 for each of the eight counts in the indictment.
Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Mr. Booher on the charges in the criminal complaint on November 20. Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose released Mr. Booher on a $75,000 bond later that day. Mr. Booher is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment on December 11, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. before Judge Howard R. Lloyd in San Jose Federal Court.
The investigation was overseen by the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States Attorney's Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shashi Kewalramani from the CHIP unit is prosecuting the case against Mr. Booher.
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney's Office's website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415) 436-7181.
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