Comment by tptacek
15 hours ago
This isn't a felony case. In fact, I'm not sure it ever was? It's not clear from their amended complaint, but they were ultimately charged with simple trespassing, a misdemeanor. Those trespassing charges were themselves dismissed a few months later.
What we're talking about today is the resolution of what looks to me (not a lawyer) mostly like a defamation case. Were they defamed? Absolutely. The problem is, to get anything useful out of a defamation case, you need to demonstrate damages. They were accused of a crime --- per se defamation --- but the point of the suit is to recover damages.
I don't want to be glib, and I'm very prepared to be wrong, but the Dallas County Courthouse Incident is likely one of the top 3 world events to have happened to both these pentesters. They've been cause celebres in the field for years and years. It might be pretty tricky to actually demonstrate damages.
They were arrested, arraigned and bonded for felony charges. Those were later reduced to misdemeanor charges and the case was eventually dropped/dismissed (can't remember which) - so they were facing felony charges for a while.
Lost clearances at least must count for something.
Did they lose clearances? If they did, it's not in their civil complaint.
I didn’t see how long it took for the charges to change from felony to misdemeanor before being dropped. It would be standard for clearances to be suspended for investigation when you get charged with a felony. (You have to report even an arrest or misdemeanor, but it’s less likely they’ll suspend it while investigating you for those).
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