St. Clair County judge orders LW Systems to pay $18K; Another hearing set Sept. 3 on Charter's costs

St. Clair County Circuit Judge Andrew Gleeson on Aug. 7 ordered the plaintiff in a computer hacking case to pay more than $18,000 in costs associated with its lawsuit.

The suit accusing Christopher Hubbard and his alleged co-conspirators of hacking into plaintiff LW Systems’ computer system - which hosts and delivers content to adult Web site operators - was dismissed with prejudice on July 23.

Shortly after the suit was filed in January, Chief Judge John Baricevic signed an agreed discovery order that let LW Systems subpoena personal information associated with certain Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from 325 Internet service providers (ISPs).

Several of the ISPs filed motions to quash the subpoenas, saying the lawsuit was brought in an attempt to extract settlements from the owners of certain IP addresses through the threat of litigation and public humiliation.

Some of these ISPs also asked the court to investigate possible collusion between the plaintiff and defendant.

According to the July 23 stipulation of dismissal with prejudice, LW Systems and Hubbard asked the Court to dismiss all claims with prejudice and for all parties to pay their own court costs and attorney fees.

Gleeson set a Sept. 3 hearing over Charter Communication’s motion for costs and protective order involving the issuance of an invalid subpoena in the case.

Charter claims it has incurred more than $5,000 in costs in response to a subpoena improperly issued out of Cook County, rather than St. Clair County, that sought information from 136 of its customers.

Gleeson on Aug. 7 ordered the plaintiff to pay Charter Communications, Inc. $1,292.8 and to certify that all information relating to Charter subscribers has been destroyed or returned.

Gleeson also ordered no further or additional use of said information to take place. He also ordered the plaintiff and its counsel not to contact Charter subscribers.

In addition, Gleeson ordered LW Systems to pay $17,625 to Comcast Cable Holdings. He ordered the payment for expenses Comcast incurred for responding to the lawsuit.

Paul A. Duffy of Duffy Law Group in Chicago and Kevin Hoerner of Becker, Hoerner & Thompson in Belleville represent the plaintiff.

Adam Urbanczyk of Chicago represents defendant Christopher Hubbard.

Numerous attorneys had been retained to represent John Does.

St. Clair County case 13-L-15.