A 25-year-old Delaware County man was convicted Friday of putting a spyware program on his father’s computer, a crime that was discovered after his father was killed.
Parth Ingle sat with his eyes closed as the jury foreperson said he had been found guilty of unlawfully using the computer when he installed eBlaster to obtain e-mails, a felony.
Ingle was found not guilty of wiretapping and intercepting e-mails, and his 28-year-old sister and co-defendant, Avnee Ingle, of Pottstown, was acquitted of all charges earlier in the day.
The case stems from the unsolved January 2008 slaying of their father, Arunkumar Ingle, who was found by his wife, Bhavnaben Ingle, in the bedroom of his Middletown Township ranch house. The 55-year-old Boeing engineer had been beaten and stabbed.
Police have said they do not believe the murder was random or motivated by robbery. They are still investigating the crime.
The jury was not told of Arunkumar Ingle’s killing, only that he had “passed away.”
Throughout the three-day trial before Judge Ann A. Osborne, much of the testimony centered on Parth Ingle, who had a contentious relationship with his father.
After accessing his father’s e-mails, Parth Ingle learned that Arunkumar Ingle had been having an affair with a Philadelphia woman, Anna Sudakevich, since 2003.
Sudakevich testified that she did not know the elder Ingle was married until the fall of 2007, when Parth Ingle came to her Northeast Philadelphia home and asked to speak with his father. The Ingles had a heated exchange, she said.
Questioned by police in his father’s death, Parth Ingle had told them he attached a GPS device to his father’s car without his knowledge. He tracked his father into the city and confronted him at Sudakevich’s home.
Sudakevich also testified in court that Arunkumar Ingle was planning to obtain false passports, fake his own death, and move with her to India. A million-dollar insurance policy he had taken out on himself would be left for his family, she said.
Defense attorney John Kusturiss, who has known Parth Ingle for many years, said the case was a family matter.
Parth Ingle was 17 when, with his mother’s permission, he installed eBlaster on the family computer to capture their father’s passwords in an attempt to keep the family together, Kusturiss said.
“You don’t have government intrusion in a family matter,” he said.
Prosecutor Joseph P. Lesniak said the case was about privacy. He said Parth Ingle showed e-mails between his father and Sudakevich to friends and relatives.
“What he really did was tear his family apart,” Lesniak said.
Contact staff writer Mari A. Schaefer at 610-892-9149, mschaefer@phillynews.com or @MariSchaefer on Twitter.
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Article source: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20111007_Delaware_County_woman_cleared_of_cyber_spying_on_her_murdered_fat.html
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