Crime has man’s name written all over it
Most people’s hotel perks include chocolates or champagne but Douglas Styles was met instead by police officers and handcuffs.
Styles, of Lower Hutt, had tried to extort more than $1 million from the Distinction Hotels group, which runs 11 New Zealand properties.
He hadn’t, as the judge who sentenced him said yesterday, thought it all the way through.
Styles sent an email to the group’s chief executive, saying the money should be put into his business account or he would release information about the ‘‘nefarious and sadistic purposes of the hotel’’.
Later, he sent another email containing an ultimatum. It said he would post an article every five hours if he was not paid. He signed the email using his full name.
Styles then booked a room at Tauranga’s Distinction Hotel. He hacked into its computer system and changed the price of his stay to $1.
When he turned up at the hotel, he was arrested.
‘‘The facts of this case are somewhat unusual,’’ Wellington District Court judge Ian Mill told Styles.
It was an unsophisticated crime, with no attempt to hide his identity. ‘‘You did not think through the consequences.’’
He said Styles, at the age of 24, was still a young man who had good support from his family, had studied and had his own business.
Styles pleaded guilty to blackmail and accessing a computer system with intent to cause a loss.
The judge sentenced him to 100 hours of community work and nine months’ supervision.