David L. Smith is expected to admit Thursday that he created the Melissa virus which disrupted e-mail systems around the world at the end of March.
The Associated Press reports a law enforcement official telling the wire service Smith would plead guilty in federal court. He was arrested April 1 at his brother's home and freed on $100,000 bail the next day, becoming among the first people ever prosecuted for creating a computer virus.
The plea agreement is said to carry terms which would send Smith to concurrent prison terms of five to ten years on state charges and five years on a Federal charge, the AP says.
Authorities believe Smith originated Melissa from equipment at his Aberdeen, NJ apartment, but subsequently destroyed all the equipment he used to create Melissa - which he's said to have named for a topless dancer he knew in Florida.
Smith is the only one charged so far in the Melissa case. He could have faced up to 40 years in prison on state charges including theft of computer service and wrongful computer access, but those charges will be dropped as part of the deal, the AP says. He's expected to plead guilty to interrupting public communications and to a federal charge of transmitting program, code, document, or other item with intent to damage a computer program or data - including altering any program, which viruses are normally intended to do.
Melissa struck March 26, disguised as "an important message" from a friend or co-worker, and whipped around the world like an e-chain letter, the AP says, hitting thousands of e-mail systems. Affected computers would send off as many as fifty infected messages, jamming e-mail systems at government agencies, companies and thousands of other institutions.
America Online contacted state authorities after their investigators found evidence that pointed to New Jersey, the AP says, and law officers were able to trace the virus to Smith's phone number within days. Authorities continue investigating to see if others were involved in the Melissa outbreak.
