Investigator in HP Probe to Plead Guilty

Bryan Wagner listens during a hearing Oct. 10, 2006, in San Jose, Calif. Wagner was charged Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007, with identity theft and conspiracy for allegedly posing as a journalist to access reporters' private phone records as part of the boardroom spying scandal at Hewlett-Packard Co. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

SAN FRANCISCO -- A private investigator charged with identity theft and conspiracy for his role in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ill-fated boardroom spying probe will plead guilty to both federal charges and testify for the prosecution, his lawyer said late Thursday.

Bryan Wagner, 29, of Littleton, Colo., will enter his plea during his scheduled arraignment hearing on Friday morning in San Jose federal court, said Wagner's lawyer Stephen Naratil.

Wagner faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of two years on the identity theft charge, and a maximum of five years for conspiracy.

Naratil said Wagner was assured "numerous times by different people" higher in the HP probe's chain of command that his investigative methods were legal. The attorney declined to say whom Wagner would be testifying against or what he had already told prosecutors.

Wagner is accused of secretly obtaining a journalist's Social Security number, using that number to create an online account with the telephone company in the reporter's name and accessing the detailed phone logs. He also is accused of illegally obtaining and transmitting personal information on HP directors, journalists and employees in the course of HP's crusade to ferret out the source of boardroom leaks to the media.

"He's just the little guy who was used by these other people who had a lot more knowledge of the conduct he was performing," Naratil said. "That's why they didn't do it. That's why they passed it off to someone who would do it. It's a classic case of pass the buck."

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco declined to comment.

Representatives for the California Attorney General's Office, which brought criminal charges in October in state court against Wagner and four other people implicated in the HP probe, did not immediately return phone calls late Thursday.

It was unclear whether the state would be forced to drop the charges against Wagner because of the competing federal charges.

The five people charged in Santa Clara County Superior Court were former HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who initiated the investigation; former HP ethics chief Kevin Hunsaker, who directed the probe; and third-party investigators Ronald DeLia, Matthew DePante and Wagner. Each face four felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and identity theft and have pleaded not guilty. Their next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 17.

Federal and state prosecutors say that HP first contracted the leak probe work out to DeLia, who runs a Boston-area detective firm called Security Outsourcing Solution and had worked with HP for several years. DeLia then contracted the work out to DePante's Florida-based company, Action Research Group, which turned to former employee Wagner to obtain the private phone logs, prosecutors say.

HP has declined to comment on Wagner's case because he didn't work for the company.