Stewart Kellar, attorney for now famous hacker George ‘Geohot’ Hotz, claims that Sony’s previous reports about Hotz’s convenient trip to South America being a ploy to avoid handing over incriminating evidence are a bit of a skewed exaggeration: “You can never take a vacation from a lawsuit. Mr. Hotz has had to make himself available 24/7 for this litigation, which has been quite demanding on him,” said Kellar who also noted that the evidence which Hotz had not handed over had in fact been delivered and consisted of some hard drive controller cards. Kellar also made it clear that Hotz had not used any of the donation money which he has received to fun the trip: “As for any question as to whether Mr. Hotz has used donation money to take a trip to South America, that’s pretty silly. Litigating against a massive company like Sony, who is represented by five attorneys, is very costly for a 21-year-old. The donation money George has received is being used exclusively for his legal defense. If there are any funds left after the lawsuit, George is planning to donate the money to the EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation].”
Hotz has also made a personal blog post commenting on all this:
Apparently, I have fled the country. ROFL
Factually, it’s true I’m in South America, on a vacation I’ve had planned and paid for since November. I mean, it is Spring break; hacking isn’t my life. Rest assured that not a dime of legal defense money would ever go toward something like this. And of course Townsend loves the idea of painting me as an international fugitive. I have been in contact with my lawyers almost every day; I would not let the case suffer. That said, I also won’t let this ridiculous lawsuit run my life either. Then the fearmongerers win.
I will be back, I hear it’s hard to come by the Xperia Play down here.
Thanks to Gamesradar for the info.
