For the final word on the Hewlett-Packard pretexting case I spoke with Bob Ridge, a white collar criminal law attorney for the firm of Thorpe, Reed and Armstrong. The big question is why the California Attorney General reduced the charges to a misdemeanor, thus allowing the judge to dismiss the case after community service is performed by the three of the four co-defendants. After all, pretexting is still a big For the final word on the Hewlett-Packard pretexting case I spoke with Bob Ridge, a white collar criminal law attorney for the firm of Thorpe, Reed and Armstrong. The big question is why the California Attorney General reduced the charges to a misdemeanor, thus allowing the judge to dismiss the case after community service is performed by the three of the four co-defendants. After all, pretexting is still a big issue and in fact the Feds are still looking into it.While Ridge was not privy to any inside discussions he was willing to opine on what might be going on behind the scenes, speaking as he did from his long experience as a defense attorney for those charged with so-called white collar crimes. For Ridge the big question is what was the policy change in the AGs office that caused them to “take their foot off the accelerator?” as he put it. Was there a change in attitude that caused the AG to back off? This remains an open question. From Ridge’s perspective it may be that these charges as originally filed were inappropriate. In other words there is a question of whether or not there is a statute on the books now that easily fits this crime. In which case perhaps the AG decided he needed to prioritize, determining that his office would have to use up a great deal of attorney time to force fit the case into the current statutes which in the end could still turn out to be a losing case. From a precedent point of view, the decision not to prosecute a case doesn’t have any value, noted Ridge. By not prosecuting the case, the AG may be sending a signal to legislators and policy makers that if they think this type of conduct should be stopped they should go back to the legislature to address this kind of activity directly.As a layman my instinct tells me that no Attorney General wants to risk loosing a case. If it wasn’t a slam dunk maybe the AG decided to wipe it off his calendar and await legislation that clearly defines wrong doing in future cases like this. Technology Industry