The US Attorney’s office says a former employee of AT&T Co has admitted to conspiring to extort $1m from the company between April and June: Louis Pacich, a former project co-ordinator for AT&T in Piscataway, New Jersey, and his uncle, Richard Vignevic, admitted to the extortion plan and they face sentencing on November 22 – Pacich admitted to stealing computerised records from 4,000 customer accounts in April and Vignevic then contacted the company and falsely warned that someone at AT&T was selling account information to competitor companies and demanded $1m from the company in order to plug the leak, he said on a tape sent to AT&T; federal agents arrested the men when they attempted to retrieve an anticipated $500,000 cash payment from the company; they are free on $100,000 bail pending sentencing but face up to 20 years inside and a fine of $250,000.
