Former Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four others have been charged with fraud and conspiracy in California, a month after HP disclosed that it had conducted a wide-ranging spying operation to identify the source of leaks to the news media.
A criminal complaint was filed in Santa Clara county superior court by California attorney general Bill Lockyer. In addition to Ms Dunn, former HP chief ethics director and senior legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker, who supervised a key phase of the operation, was charged, along with three outsiders who did surveillance work for the Silicon Valley computer icon.
All five were charged with four felonies under California statutes. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of three years and a maximum fine of $25,000 (€19,697).
The charges were filed on an extraordinary day in which Mr Lockyer, who is seeking election as state treasurer, declared in a statement that "people inside and outside HP violated privacy rights and broke state law" during the company's "misguided" effort to plug media leaks.
The charges came one day after Ms Dunn (53) learned from her doctor that her advanced ovarian cancer had recurred and she needed to undergo chemotherapy, according to a source close to her.
Ms Dunn's attorney, Jim Bros-nahan, said the charges "are being brought against the wrong person at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. They are the culmination of a well-financed and highly orchestrated disinformation campaign".
Charged along with Ms Dunn and Mr Hunsaker (41), were Boston security contractor Ronald R DeLia (56), and private investigators Bryan Wagner (29), with an address in Colorado, and Matthew Depante (27), manager of Action Research Group of Melbourne, Florida.
They were accused of participating in a long-running HP surveillance operation that involved the use of false pretences to gain access to personal phone records of HP board members, journalists and their families - a practice known as "pretexting".
Each was charged with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy to commit those three crimes. The complaint alleges that the defendants used "false and fraudulent pretences" to obtain confidential information from a phone company, including billing records, belonging to 12 people.
Ms Dunn, who first stepped down as chairwoman and then resigned from the board last month, repeatedly has said she was given assurances that the methods used in the leak probe were legal.
The criminal charges come a few days after Ms Dunn, Mr Hunsaker and the company's chairman and chief executive, Mark Hurd, appeared before a congressional investigative subcommittee to answer questions about the surveillance methods HP used.
The tactics included following or watching board members, journalists and their family members at home and at conferences, and conducting a sting operation on a reporter.
The two-phase spying operation began in 2005 and ended this past spring.
According to court papers filed on Wednesday, the telephone, fax and mobile phone accounts of more than 24 people were accessed in the HP probe.
HP's investigators reviewed 33 months of phone records and about 1,750 calls from 590 telephone numbers.
