United States v. Carol Ann Goldstein, United States of America v. Toby Roberts

In a non-jury trial appellants were convicted of conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 , and fraud by wire in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 , through the use of an electronic device which enabled them to reroute long distance telephone calls and avoid being billed for the services. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Telephone Company Investigation

Walter P. Schmidt is a special agent for General Telephone Company with substantial training in electronics. Since the mid 1960s he has worked with the company’s security department in the investigation of electronic toll fraud. A common method of perpetrating such fraud is through the use by subscribers of signal generators known as “blue boxes”, which emit the multifre-quency tones used to activate long distance lines. The caller uses the device by calling a toll free number, known also as an 800 or WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service) number, and then generating the required tones to place the long distance call. As far as the billing system is concerned, the call is coming from the WATS number. In March, 1974 Schmidt was going over the computer print-outs of 800 number calls in order to detect any number dialed an excessive number…