Monday, July 20, 2009

USCF Dispute Becomes Criminal

Bad news from the United States as far as PR for chess is concerned. The Department of Justice last week released the following:
A federal grand jury in San Jose indicted Gregory Alexander, of Everett, Wash., Wednesday for unauthorized access of the private email account of a member of a not-for-profit organization’s board of directors, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced.

According to the indictment, Alexander used a username and password belonging to Randall Hough, a member of the United States Chess Federation’s Board of Directors, to access Hough’s private email account on 34 separate occasions spanning from November 2007 to June 2008. Additionally, the indictment notes that Alexander obtained information from Hough’s account on an unspecified number of those occasions.
More in the NY Times, by Dylan Loeb McLain.

3 comments:

ejh said...

Maybe bad news as regards PR, but not necessarily bad news as such. The allegations involved in this case are so serious that they really do need to go before a court, which up to now they have not (or not, at least, a court prepared to accept jurisdiction).

This does at least appear to bring that moment closer.

Paul said...

If true, this does not bode well. Chessplayers don't need to have to endure all of this legal mumbo jumbo!

Garvin said...

Compared to alot of the allegations flying back and forth, this is some of the more minor stuff.

As ejh says, maybe it is bad news publicity wise, but in the long run maybe not bad news in terms of getting some resolution to all the accusations going back and forth.