On Friday, a Monterey County woman was charged with wiretapping a police officer and possessing "illegal interception devices,” according to the Northern California District Attorney’s office. The District Attorney said that Kristin Nyunt, age 40, allegedly intercepted communications made by a police officer on his mobile phone.
Nyunt is the ex-wife of former Pacific Grove Police Commander John Nyunt, and she has already been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison after pleading guilty in July to five counts of identity theft, two counts of computer network fraud, one count of residential burglary, and two counts of forgery.In the latest charges [PDF], the District Attorney accused Nyunt of using illegal spyware including MobiStealth, StealthGenie, and mSpy to intercept "sensitive law enforcement communication” in real time. Nyunt allegedly placed the spyware on a police officer’s phone surreptitiously, although court documents do not detail how or why.
Last month, the Chief Executive Officer of StealthGenie, one of the apps that Nyunt allegedly used to wiretap a police officer, was arrested and charged with illegally marketing his app to monitor adults. The government said that the software was "expressly designed for use by stalkers and domestic abusers who want to know every detail of a victim’s personal life—all without the victim’s knowledge.” The app took minutes to install but required the user to have physical control of the victim’s phone.
According to the Bay City News Service, between 2010 and 2012, Nyunt and her husband operated an unlicensed private investigator business called Nyunt Consulting and Investigative Services Corporation and used access to their customers’ devices and information to later commit identity theft. It is unclear whether the police officer Nyunt allegedly wiretapped was a customer of the Nyunts’ PI business.
Earlier this year, John Nyunt was convicted on state and federal charges for "steering a possible crime victim to his private investigation firm, then pretending to look into her case after accepting $10,000,” according to SFGate. "He also admitted that he gave Kristin Nyunt his department password and access to a commercial law-enforcement database without authorization.” John Nyunt was arrested in March for allegedly threatening to murder Kristin. The threat was discovered as both Nyunts, who were divorced at the time, were being investigated for possible fraud and theft. Kristin Nyunt specifically was accused of taking paintings and collectors' coins from homes, and she was thought to have committed 20 instances of identity theft since 2009.
The rise of spyware, especially programs for mobile phones often marketed toward parents who want to keep an eye on their children, has naturally led the rise of nefarious ways to use it. In 2008, two adult children allegedly put keylogging spyware on their father’s PC and monitored his e-mail and Internet use. In 2012, the man’s wife and son pleaded guilty to murdering him.
Even more recently, the EFF called out dozens upon dozens of local police forces for giving out software called ComputerCOP—a key logging program that’s essentially spyware but is marketed towards parents that want to keep track of their children.
“If [ComputerCOP is] used properly, it's something we whole-heartedly endorse,” one Alabama sheriff told Ars earlier this month.
As the case of Kristin Nyunt shows, spyware is often not used properly. And sometimes it’s turned against the police themselves.
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