Tom Bruno eliminates six of seven charges with plea agreement for client

Posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2015 at 11:13 pm    

Daniel Beckwitt was facing seven criminal charges in 2013, to which he originally pleaded not guilty. Six of those charges were eventually dropped after attorney Tom Bruno arranged a plea agreement with Assistant State’s Attorney Matt Banach. In the end, Beckwitt pleaded guilty to a single count of computer fraud, a Class 3 felony. As part of his punishment for the felony, Beckwitt was sentenced to 24 months of probation and made to pay just under $25,000 in fines and restitution.

The original charges stemmed from allegations concerning Beckwitt’s tampering with computers in the University of Illinois’ Everitt Laboratory to gain access to a student’s account with the use of a keyboard logger. By doing so, the affected student was made to commit an academic integrity violation. UI also claimed that the hacking forced the cancellation of a final exam.  Beckwitt was ordered to compensate the University of Illinois over $22,000 to pay for the damages that were associated with the crime that he pleaded guilty to.