Fed Blotter: MySpace Sex Offender Charged With Running Fake Internet Church

11-14-2008 National:

A convicted pedophile who turned up in MySpace's 2007 purge of sex offenders faces new charges of bank fraud for allegedly running counterfeit checks through a bank account he established for his online church, TruthOfGodMinistries.org.

Carl Courtright III, 37, came to law enforcement's attention when MySpace began automatically matching its members against a database of convicted sex offenders. MySpace launched its crackdown in May of last year, following a similar search by Wired.com that found more than 700 registered sex offenders using its service. MySpace's more sophisticated effort turned up some 29,000 offenders within two months.

Eager to learn what those ex-offenders were up to, if anything, the attorneys general of several states subpoenaed MySpace for IP addresses and other data on the deleted accounts. But aside from a handful of parole violations -- mostly offenders who weren't supposed to be using the internet -- there's been only one new criminal charge announced in connection with the data.

That's Courtright, who'd been convicted in 1998 of sexually abusing a 16-year-old.

Investigators with the Illinois Attorney General's Office matched Courtright's IP address with a list of addresses that had been spotted trading kid porn over file sharing services. When they searched and seized his computer, they found numerous child pornography files, and evidence -- they say -- that he was producing some of it himself.

The feds stepped in and charged Courtright with production, possession and receipt of child pornography. Now he's been hit with a new indictment (.pdf) that adds bank fraud to the list.

Calling himself "Pastor Carl A. Courtright," the defendant allegedly opened a bank account for his online church, TruthOfGodMinistries.org. "We reach out to those in need following the example of our Risen Saviour [sic] Jesus Christ visiting those who are sick in Hospitals, Lost in Prisons, Homeless on the streets, even those lost living 'normal' lives at home, and praying with and for those who are just in need of the touch of Gods Loving Grace and Mercy that He give FREELY to all who ask," reads the website.

"In addition to soliciting prayer requests on the website, Courtright solicited financial contributions to the 'Truth of God Ministries' which could be made at any Regions Bank," the indictment notes.

It's not clear whether Courtright got any donations from his ersatz missionary work, but the indictment, filed in September in federal court in St. Louis, charges that he used the same computers on which he made child porn to produce $3,100 in counterfeit donation checks payable to his church. In February of last year, he allegedly deposited the checks and cashed them out through ATM and Visa Checkcard transactions before they were rejected.

When Regions Bank asked him about the apparent fraud, he wrote a letter as Pastor Carl assuring the bank that he'd cooperate in the investigation, and was looking forward to a continued business relationship. "Last year alone, our operating budget was $987,436.00," he boasted.

Courtright's trial had been scheduled to start this Monday, but last week a federal judge ordered a continuance to give Courtright's lawyer time to process the new charge. If convicted of producing child pornography, he faces a life sentence.

Big bucks were also allegedly on the mind of Eric Andrew Hamberg, a former computer technician with the South Carolina Employment Security Commission.

When Hamberg was terminated from his job in October, 2005, after five years of service, he hacked back into the state agency's computers and stole its massive database of South Carolina citizens, according to an indictment (.pdf) handed down last week in federal court in Columbia.

The stolen data included names, addresses, and driver's license and Social Security numbers on
every single man and woman with a job in the Palmetto State, according to court records.

Prosecutors say Hamberg planned on selling the information. Called "full infos" in the parlance of the underground, identity thieves pay a pretty penny for such stolen data.

It's not clear from the indictment whether the data was ever sold or exploited. Clark Newsom, a spokesman for the agency, declined to comment on the case, claiming the investigation is still ongoing over two years after the fact. He also refused to say whether the state had warned any of the victims that their personal information had been stolen. Threat Level could not turn up any public disclosure of the breach.

Hamberg is charged with computer intrusion, identity theft, making false statements to the FBI denying the hack attack, and being a felon in possession of firearms, specifically a Marin model 60, 22. caliber rifle; a J.C. Penny 20 gauge shotgun; an SKS AK-47 assault rifle; a Ruger .22 caliber rifle; and a 9mm handgun. ..News Source.. by Kevin Poulsen