MicroPatent initially believed that its problems were the work of a competitor. It sued one company that it suspected but later dropped that lawsuit.
Analysis of e-mail messages by Eric Shaw, a clinical psychologist who had once profiled terrorists and foreign potentates for the CIA, then led them to believe that they were tracking a technologically sophisticated man, older than 30, with a history of work problems and personal conflicts, who was compulsively obsessed with details and who might own weapons. The stalker was extremely angry and "holding a grudge," Shaw recalled. "People like that can be very dangerous."
Within a few weeks, Shaw's analysis led the investigative team to focus on Myron Tereshchuk, a 43-year-old entrepreneur in Hyattsville, Maryland, who ran his own patent business and had once been rebuffed by MicroPatent when he applied to the company for a job. And Tereshchuk was their man.
Tereshchuk's methods for evading detection surfaced after the FBI began following him. Using wireless computing gear stashed in an old, blue Pontiac, and fishing for access from an antenna mounted on his car's dashboard, Tereshchuk cruised Virginia and Maryland neighborhoods, lifting Yahoo and America Online accounts and passwords from homeowners and businesspeople with wireless Internet connections. Federal court documents also say he then hijacked the accounts and routed e-mail messages to MicroPatent from them. He used wireless home networks he had commandeered to hack into MicroPatent's computer network and occasionally made use of online accounts at the University of Maryland's student computer lab, which he had also anonymously penetrated.
By late February of last year, the FBI had laid digital traps for Tereshchuk inside the student lab, which was near his home.
On March 10 last year federal agents swarmed Tereshchuk's home, where they found the hand grenade components and ricin ingredients. The agents arrested him the same day, while he was seated in his car and in the midst of sending a new crop of e-mail messages to Videtto.
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