Pa. dentist who accused Bill Gates of hacking sentenced
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A former western Pennsylvania dentist was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison for threatening to kill an FBI agent because the mentally ill defendant believes the government is thwarting his efforts to have Microsoft founder Bill Gates arrested for computer hacking and other fanciful wrongs.
"He's hacking the Internet beyond belief," Anthony Dinozzi, 45, insisted when Senior U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose asked Dinozzi if he wanted to speak before he was sentenced. "I can prove all this and no one will listen to me. My life is on the line, your honor."
Dinozzi's federal public defender, Tara Allen, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Picking declined to comment on Dinozzi's mental illness or how he was found competent to plead guilty and be sentenced, despite his ongoing delusions.
On Wednesday, Dinozzi seemed to understand that he was being sentenced and why, though he asked Ambrose to include a notation on her sentencing order that he's sincere in his beliefs.
"Whatever you give me, just please put on the note that I'm not lying," Dinozzi said.
Dinozzi was arrested in January after he left an obscenity-laced voicemail message for Gregory Heeb, an FBI agent in Pittsburgh. Among other things, Dinozzi threatened to kill Heeb, have the Hell's Angels "get" Heeb and to have the agent imprisoned after which Dinozzi would pay inmates to "torture you alive."
Dinozzi left the message because he was upset that Heeb had called Dinozzi's mother to let her know that her son had once again made threatening calls to a federal judge in Washington state, to the FBI office in Seattle and to police in Medina, Wash., the suburb where Gates lives.
Heeb originally encountered Dinozzi at Pittsburgh International Airport in February 2011. Dinozzi was claiming to be a federal marshal and wanted to board a flight to Seattle, claiming his ticket had been booked by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. At the time, Dinozzi claimed Gates was sending waves through Dinozzi's computer that were harming his brain.
Dinozzi wasn't arrested and was allowed to leave the airport with a warning. Days later, he called to apologize to Heeb and say he was being treated for mental illness. When the calls to the Washington authorities resumed months later, Heeb called Dinozzi's mother, who has been cooperative in trying to get her son mental health treatment.
Dinozzi told the judge that's what set him off and prompted him to threaten Heeb in January.
"He called my home and made my mom furious," Dinozzi said. "I'm 45 years old. He didn't have to call my mom."
Ambrose said she wasn't entirely happy to be sentencing Dinozzi, but told him it was necessary for him to understand the seriousness of his actions.
"This poses a real puzzle. There you were with all the promise in the world," Ambrose said of his education. "It is sad for me to see that is gone from your life."
"My sentence has to deter you from acting this way in the future."
"He's hacking the Internet beyond belief," Anthony Dinozzi, 45, insisted when Senior U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose asked Dinozzi if he wanted to speak before he was sentenced. "I can prove all this and no one will listen to me. My life is on the line, your honor."
Dinozzi's federal public defender, Tara Allen, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Picking declined to comment on Dinozzi's mental illness or how he was found competent to plead guilty and be sentenced, despite his ongoing delusions.
On Wednesday, Dinozzi seemed to understand that he was being sentenced and why, though he asked Ambrose to include a notation on her sentencing order that he's sincere in his beliefs.
"Whatever you give me, just please put on the note that I'm not lying," Dinozzi said.
Dinozzi was arrested in January after he left an obscenity-laced voicemail message for Gregory Heeb, an FBI agent in Pittsburgh. Among other things, Dinozzi threatened to kill Heeb, have the Hell's Angels "get" Heeb and to have the agent imprisoned after which Dinozzi would pay inmates to "torture you alive."
Dinozzi left the message because he was upset that Heeb had called Dinozzi's mother to let her know that her son had once again made threatening calls to a federal judge in Washington state, to the FBI office in Seattle and to police in Medina, Wash., the suburb where Gates lives.
Heeb originally encountered Dinozzi at Pittsburgh International Airport in February 2011. Dinozzi was claiming to be a federal marshal and wanted to board a flight to Seattle, claiming his ticket had been booked by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. At the time, Dinozzi claimed Gates was sending waves through Dinozzi's computer that were harming his brain.
Dinozzi wasn't arrested and was allowed to leave the airport with a warning. Days later, he called to apologize to Heeb and say he was being treated for mental illness. When the calls to the Washington authorities resumed months later, Heeb called Dinozzi's mother, who has been cooperative in trying to get her son mental health treatment.
Dinozzi told the judge that's what set him off and prompted him to threaten Heeb in January.
"He called my home and made my mom furious," Dinozzi said. "I'm 45 years old. He didn't have to call my mom."
Ambrose said she wasn't entirely happy to be sentencing Dinozzi, but told him it was necessary for him to understand the seriousness of his actions.
"This poses a real puzzle. There you were with all the promise in the world," Ambrose said of his education. "It is sad for me to see that is gone from your life."
"My sentence has to deter you from acting this way in the future."
Can we have an article which tells us exactly what his accusations towards Bill Gates are, or a link to one at least?
As a person with a mentally ill family member, all I can say is PLEASE make him serve his time in a mental institution, not in an actual prison. Â There is no way he should get off the hook for this, but one thing I've learned about mentally ill people with these delusions is that they are as real as it gets for them. Â Once a thought passes through their head, it's become a fact to them, and they can't unwrap their mind from it. Â
@eichler34  Hmmm---yes--ideas that get stuck in our heads. Well, I have had some strange things happen related to my computer and it does bother me. Really, nothing would surprise me when it comes to hackers--who they are and why they are doing that.
 @eichler34 All this emphasis on the mentally illâwhat about the simple-minded who are leveraged against a so-called "target" because they follow anything they perceive as being the most popular option; incline to go with the wind; easily succumb to negative peer-pressure?!  Do we not take responsibility for subjecting people who are ill-equipped to properly interpret such information and libel as a result of exposure, to harm their fellow man, knowing full well they are placing trust in us that we do what is in their interests with their tax monies?
Bath salts: Not even once!
 @Chris Johanson It's evident from your screen name that either you reference the film star of the same name, or you imply something about my character as a frame of reference through association.  It's anybody's guess why these film stars are dragged into every discussion where Bill Gates' name appears.  All I know is I got one invitation from Steven Spielberg to a gala event seven years ago that I turned down because I had prior commitments, and because I could not afford to pay the entrance fee.
@Chris_Halasz What does that have to do with this article?
Anyone who's watched, "The Social Network", a sort of semi-autobiographical slash public relations feature about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, knows it's commonplace in the field of computer electronics for hackers to exploit holes in the databases of competing or peripheral businesses. Â
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Here's a cursory Google search on the topic: "hacker hired by government":Â http://www.google.com/search?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=hacker+hired+by+government
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We also have a book entitled, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", which features a young hacker hired by big business to keep track of criminal elements and hunt Nazis, placing the phenomenon of hacking as a corporate mainstay firmly in the public consciousness. Â I read the author of that book even died under mysterious circumstances, presumably to discourage others from turning to the right side of the law in this digital underground. I don't think it gets more clear that Bill Gates has contacts who consider themselves to be above the law. Â I think it's clear that the average person, when targeted by such intelligence tactics, does not have the psychological means to properly verbalize these attacks into coherent language due to certain hypnosis tactics employed by these people. I've demonstrated their tacticsâ I've formerly posted screenshots of some exorbitantly wealthy Ebay buyer hogging every single vintage publication on the subject of hypnosis in an effort to suppress the knowledge by which this effect is executed on their victims. Â The language centers are mercilessly targeted, meanwhile, interviews are conducted by chat in order to deduce a person's deepest formative fears; these are subsequently pounded on mercilessly through subliminal triggers in the subject until a psychological breakdown ensues. Â Those behind this are not exacting the will of the Church, eitherâ there is no religious agenda but simply an economic one behind this system. Â They piggy-back on the Catholic Church as a means to infiltrate. Â
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An example posted today to Bill's personal page on Gates Notes ( http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Education/Why-Im-Excited-about-the-Arrival-of-Back-to-School-Season?WT.mc_id=8_29_2012_backtoschool_tw&WT.tsrc=Twitter )Â is a false example written by a perpetrator who is too frightened to use proper sentence structure:
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"I pined this one...  My Parish gierl like ELF she very young (and have 3-4 life)  is    integrate in Bible but not in Open sourse...    In 1-st book Reirkarnacija  (no I close some (blue dont mean homoseksualist)  cat root$  AND SHE LOVE ME VERY VERY ,she fine ...and have job in NOTRE DAMN DE PARI and think like you  in 30 or I am in 25 . MINDS THAT IS GREATE THEN BEARING OIL>>>>40 win of course....  vista ,crysis at 27 I was like RECYKLING MAN from NY streetsâ¦"
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The typical language of a civilian CIA target is not filled with occult symbology; it is customarily comprised of coherent phrases which attempt to describe a sensation for which one has no vocabulary; a prime example being the subject of this article who speaks of "brain waves" because he lacks the capacity to verbalize the abuses to his psyche.
 @Chris_Halasz Show me proof that computers have become so ingrained an interface that it can affect the human psyche, mind, and body before any of your gibberish makes sense.
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Bill Gates is about making software, not hardware, which currently is the only part of computer technology which interfaces with the human mind and body, but the psyche is one part which has yet to be proven affected.
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You make it sound like the future reality of the manga and anime series Ghost in the Shell is more a reality than it is, since in that world, the human mind interfaces directly with the data streams, but we're not yet at that level.
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If this man were able to prove his mind was being hacked by Gates then he would have human rights activist behind him, but unfortunately, no one believes his delusions, and I'm surprised you do. You're not fighting for human rights, you're arguing fanciful ideals which, when put side-by-side, either contradict one another or make no sense whatsoever.
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Next time you want to support someone's delusions, make sure your arguments are more factual than this.
 @Rema Cyphers  @Chris_Halasz And it would be a good idea to make sure your arguments aren't long, twisting and winding!
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But, Chris_Halasz, your comment about BG sticking to software, that's not entirely true. MS has from time to time manufactured hardware from mice & keyboards to other devices. I was once invited to do a usability study with MS using eye tracking hardware and software. MS continues to work on various interface technologies.
 @Commenter87643 It was actually my comment which mentioned Gates and his company only sticking to software, because that is the basis of the company, and any forays into hardware are usually with other company's help, rarely on their own.
 @Chris_Halasz You sound nuttier than that guy in the article.
I doubt Bill himself has the time to hack the internet.
 @robmo LOL, or the need to!
If he has 'proof' the best thing he could do with it is go public. I'm sure the proof came from the neighbors dog though.
Take that! Don't try to mess with our home boy Billy......on a side note: Here's a high achiever w/ plenty 'o book learnin who became a dentist only to be plagued by some chemical deficiencies in his noggin......Why send him to a plain 'ol prison? He needs real help. It is possible to remove him from society AND treat him in this day and age.Â
 @bagsofdirt One year too early for ObamaCare, I'm afraid.
I would have rather seen this guy sentenced to a mental institution where they could actually help this guy. Prison will do nothing for his illness. I worry that instead of helping, the judge may have simply put this guy in a place where he can simply be forgotten for the next 18 months.
 @JoeKing On the one hand, I agree with you that it just 'doesn't seem right' to send a mentally ill person to prison, I think we need to give the judge the benefit of the doubt. "Dinozzi's federal public defender, Tara Allen, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Picking declined to comment on Dinozzi's mental illness or how he was found competent to plead guilty and be sentenced, despite his ongoing delusions."
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The man has been found competent to plead guilty, so there's a bit more to the mental illness that would need some investigation before crying 'foul'. It may be that Dinozzi KNOWS he should be taking medication and simply won't. Putting him into a mental hospital for 18 months may not be effective because he'd just believe he didn't really belong there. But, he may be able to understand that 'if I behave in this manner, I will spend time in real prison', and we can hope that will be a deterrent. Hopefully, a minimum security prison is enough.