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Asperger Syndrome and Hacker

Albert Gonzalez, the 28-year-old Miami hacker accused of helping to orchestrate the largest credit card heist in US history, may not have understood he was committing a crime because he has a developmental disorder, according to information his attorneys have submitted to federal court in Boston.

His attorneys said a forensic psychiatrist has evaluated Gonzalez and concluded his behavior was consistent with that of someone who suffers from Asperger syndrome. It is considered a mild form of autism and is generally associated with individuals who have difficulty learning social skills, trouble relating to other people, and a limited set of interests, along with other behaviors.

The evaluation from the psychiatrist, Dr. Barry Roth of Brookline, was filed under seal this week, but was referenced by prosecutors in a separate court filing that is public. According to that filing, Roth questioned whether Gonzalez had the “capacity to knowingly evaluate the wrongfulness of his actions and consciously behave lawfully and avoid crime.’’

Gonzalez was due to be sentenced Monday in federal court in Boston on charges related to the theft of tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from numerous major retailers, including TJX Cos., of Framingham, and BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc., of Natick. But a federal judge, Patti Saris, agreed to postpone the sentencing after prosecutors sought additional time to consider the information in the psychiatrist’s report. A new date has not been set.

Gonzalez has pleaded guilty and faces 15 to 25 years in prison under an arrangement with prosecutors. But his attorneys hope the doctor’s findings will help persuade the judge to sentence Gonzalez at the lower end of that range.

“Mr. Gonzalez’s offenses are at least in part correlated to an Internet compulsion . . . and impaired judgment,’’ said one of his attorneys, Martin G. Weinberg of Boston.

In August, a Los Angeles hacker received a slightly reduced sentence of 55 months in prison for participating in a multimillion-dollar computer crime after he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

Dania Jekel, executive director at the Asperger’s Association of New England, said it is easy for people with the disorder to be manipulated into helping someone else commit a crime, be pressured into falsely confessing to a crime, or fail to realize they are committing a crime. As many as 1 in 200 people have the disorder, she said.

“It’s not that people with Asperger syndrome do not know right for wrong,’’ Jekel said. “They don’t understand the potential consequence of what they are doing.’’

But Jason Evan Mihalko, a Cambridge psychologist who has worked with such patients, said it’s hard to imagine the disorder would spur someone to break into retail computer networks to steal millions of credit card numbers and then sell the data. Prosecutors allegedly seized more than $1.6 million from Gonzalez, including more than $1 million buried in his parents’ backyard.

Mihalko said the vast majority of people with Asperger syndrome never commit a crime. And when people do get in trouble, it’s typically because they take one of their obsessions too far – someone with trains, for instance, might break into a train to find out how it works. Or someone interested in electronics might steal a device to take it apart. But he said that does not mean people with Asperger syndrome can’t understand that stealing credit card data is wrong.

“Most everyone learns in school – or from parents – that stealing is wrong,’’ Mihalko said. “It’s no different for kids with Asperger’s.’’

Weinberg also said he plans to cite other reasons why Gonzalez deserves no more than a 15-year sentence, including his acceptance of responsibility for his crimes and the fact that in other white-collar crimes, hedge fund managers and company executives have received fairly light sentences.

“Fifteen years is a severe sentence that more than corresponds to the gravity of this man’s offenses,’’ Weinberg said.

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