Riggs ultimately pleaded guilty in Georgia and was sentenced to 21 months in prison and two years' supervised release.

Robert Riggs had a previous conviction for computer-related crime in North Carolina in 1986 for unauthorized access to BellSouth's computers.

[3] On February 1, 1990,[4] a federal grand jury voted to issue an indictment[5] against both Robert Riggs and Craig Neidorf.

Neidorf then allegedly downloaded the file from the bulletin board in Lockport, Illinois, to his own computer in Columbia, Missouri.

Although the government conceded that § 2314 had never been applied in this manner before, the court held that it would allow electronic interstate transportation of proprietary business information as a violation of § 2314.

The second indictment also broadened the scope of alleged activities from strictly obtaining and disseminating the BellSouth text file.

Neidorf incorporated arguments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in support of his motions to dismiss.

The court rejected both of these arguments, holding that criminal laws apply even if the activity in question is speech related.

No reason for dropping the charges was officially given, although the government's case was considerably weakened by expert witnesses employed by Neidorf and Zenner.

The conditions of Riggs' supervised release included that he was not allowed to own or control a computer of any type for his own personal use at any point in the two-year period.

[14] Communications of the ACM published an article reviewing the events of the case and offering commentary on the proceedings and potential responses from the professional community.