Former Student Charged With Hacking UMaine E-Mail Accounts

ORONO (NEWS CENTER) -- Twenty-six-year-old James Wieland was arrested Wednesday at his home in Lewiston. The arrest stems from a 3-week investigation involving University of Maine campus police, the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Task Force and the United States Secret Service.

Investigators said Thursday at a press conference that James Wieland was a student at the University from 2000 to this past spring. Officials with the Catholic Diocese of Portland said Wieland resigned from his job as the director of development for Trinity Catholic School in Lewiston after his arrest.

Despite Wieland's claim on his personal website that he has two degrees from the University of Maine, school officials confirmed, Wieland never graduated.

Campus police said they believe Wieland began hacking into student accounts in August of 2007. They say he gained access to accounts by sending other students a downloadable game through e-mail -- when students opened the game it downloaded a "trojan horse" program on their computer, which allowed Wieland to record keystrokes, giving him access to passwords and secure information.

UMaine Police Chief Noel March says the school information technologies department was tipped off to the compromised accounts when two students received e-mails from each other -- while they were riding on an airplane together.

"We're able to back track through IP addresses, through Internet identity addresses to find the computers and networks through which these attempts were made from," March explained.

"In financial crime we say follow the money. In computer crime we look to follow IP addresses and linkages between computers."

Police said they still don't know Wieland's motive for stealing the information or what, if anything, he did with it. He was charged with felony Aggravated Criminal Invasion of Computer Privacy, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Wieland is currently free on bond.

Wieland is scheduled to be arraigned in Penobscot County District Court on January 30. The state computer crimes task force confiscated computers and files from Wieland's home.

Police said he could face additional charges based on what they're able to find in those computer files. Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Maine said Thursday that Wieland submitted his resignation from Trinity Catholic School shortly after his arrest.