A Chula Vista man was sentenced Monday to 63 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to computer hacking and conspiracy to commit wire fraud into a mortgage business.
Jason Ray Bailey, 42, was ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel to pay $13,025.02 in damages to the victims whose personal information he hacked. The number of victims whose identities were hacked were estimated at 4,200 to 20,000.
Bailey has been in the Metropolitan Correctional Center for 41 months since his arrest by the FBI in February 2014, so he will receive credits for that time served. He has only 22 more months left, and his attorney wrote in court documents that Bailey would live with his parents in Washington after his release.
Bailey and others were members of an identity theft ring based in Tijuana. They hacked computer servers of an unnamed U.S. mortgage business to obtain its customers’ names, dates of birth, social security numbers, addresses, driver’s license and tax information, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
In a hand-written letter from jail to Curiel, Bailey expressed regret at what he had done. Both his lawyer and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sabrina Feve agreed upon the 63-month recommended sentence.
Another Chula Vista man, John Gordon Baden, now 41, was sentenced Sept. 23, 2015 to nine years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and computer hacking.
Baden is serving his 9-year term at a New Jersey federal prison and his release date is June 19, 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Attorneys for both Bailey and Baden attributed their clients’ conduct to an addiction to methamphetamine.
Baden used computers he purchased with hacked credit cards at Chula Vista and National City stores to commit the identity theft, and those computers were forfeited to the government.
Awaiting sentencing is Victor Alejandro Fernandez, 41, and Joel Nava Sanchez, 40, said Feve. Fernandez has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, using another person’s identifying information, and computer hacking.
