A 45-year-old Blaine, Minn., man has been indicted for hacking into his neighbor’s wireless Internet system, and while posing as the neighbor, threatened to kill Vice President Joseph Biden and e-mailed child pornography, according to federal officials.

The federal indictment, which was filed last week, charges Barry Vincent Ardolf with two counts of aggravated identity theft, one count of making threats to the President and successors to the presidency, one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer, one count of possession of child pornography, and one count of distribution of child pornography.

The indictment alleges that in February 2009, Ardolf hacked into his neighbor’s wireless Internet connection and created multiple Yahoo.com email accounts in that person’s name. Then, on May 6, 2009, he allegedly used one of those accounts to email the office of the Vice President of the United States. In that email, he stated,

“This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously. I hate the way you people are spending money you don’t have.... I’m assigning myself to be judge jury and executioner. Since you folks have spent what you don’t have it’s time to pay the ultimate price. Time for new officials after you all are put to death by us....”

The email, which also was sent to the Governor and U.S. Senator from Minnesota, went on to threaten to kill the officials one at a time, with the first being dead by June 1.

Ardolf allegedly signed the email with the name of the neighbor from whom he stole Internet access, as well as the name of that person’s wife. Ardolf allegedly sent the email using the wireless router belonging to the neighbor, intending for the email to be traced back to that neighbor.  

In addition to sending the threatening e-mail, the indictment alleges that in February 2009, Ardolf posed as an identity-theft victim and used the email accounts he created in the victim’s name to send sexually-themed emails to three of the victim’s co-workers.

Again, the defendant sent the emails through the victim’s wireless Internet connection, intending for them to be traced to the victim’s Internet account. In one of the emails, Ardolf attached an image containing child pornography. Ardolf also allegedly created a MySpace (News - Alert) page in the victim’s name, on which he posted the same image of child pornography.

If convicted, Ardolf faces a potential maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the distribution of child pornography charge, ten years on the pornography possession charge, five years on both the unauthorized access to a computer and the threats to the Vice President, and a mandatory two-year minimum prison sentence on each count of aggravated identity theft, according to the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The arrest is the result of an investigation by the Minnesota Cyber Crimes Task Force, which is sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service, with assistance from the Blaine Police Department and the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Rank.

In a related matter, ESET’s Senior Research Director Jeff Debrosse (News - Alert) recently told TMCnet that cyber crime doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.