Preliminary hearing today for Oak Park man accused of extortion, fraud

Preliminary hearing today for Oak Park man accused of extortion, fraud

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard R. Lloyd in conjunction with the March 17 arrest of Michael Anthony Bradley, 32, of Oak Park. Bradley was arrested on a criminal complaint filed in San Jose, charging him with interfering with commerce by threats or violence. At the time of his arrest, special agents were simultaneously conducting a search warrant of his Oak Park home, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bradley, a self-described computer programmer, had been taken into custody by agents of the Secret Service in Mountain View, Calif. Bradley allegedly had demanded $100,000 from Google to stop him from releasing a software program that he claimed would have allowed spammers to defraud Google of millions of dollars.

Bradley was released on $50,000 bond on March 18, but he had to meet several conditions. Refraining from using any computer or the Internet and avoiding all contact with Google employees were among those conditions.

According to the criminal complaint, Bradley attempted to defraud and extort money from Google, a company best known for its free Internet search engine.

Bradley allegedly warned Google engineers in person on March 10 that he had developed a program that would create fraudulent "clicks" on cost-per-click advertisements utilized by Google. The procedure would have caused Google to make payments for false clicks that were untraceable. Bradley allegedly told the Google engineers that, if he didn’t get $100,000 for his program, he would sell it to top spammers and Google would lose millions of dollars.

As in all cases, Bradley is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. He faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.