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Texas D.A. Won't Prosecute Alleged Braindumper

Judge orders assets returned; Microsoft considering civil charges.

The longest-standing criminal investigation of an alleged braindumper has come to an end without any charges being filed.

Almost two years ago, San Antonio police seized the business and personal assets of former TestKiller.com and TroyTec.com owner Garry Neale during a criminal investigation of a complaint made by Microsoft alleging that he sold Microsoft certification exam questions, in violation of Texas theft of trade secret statutes.

Now, Neale's assets -- including $408,566.84 from various bank accounts along with business assets and personal items such as a truck, collectibles, children's video games and a refrigerator -- have all been returned to him by court order. The Bexar County District Attorney's Office has also publicly declared that it no longer intends to criminally prosecute Neale.

Neale, who was never charged with any crime, declined CertCities.com's requests for an interview. One of his defense attorneys, John Convery, told CertCities.com that he's "very happy" for his client. Convery confirmed to CertCities.com that all of Neale's belongings were returned to him last month.

According to the parties in the case, a plea deal was almost reached early last year that would have led to Neale to plead to a misdemeanor and forfeit half their assets. However, this plea deal fell through, in part because of a disagreement between the D.A.'s office and Microsoft over who would receive the seized assets.

Story continued on CertCities.com here.

About the Author

Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.

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