Virus lulz

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2 Charged With Fraud of Millions From Pianist
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: November 8, 2010



In August 2004, Roger C. Davidson walked into a computer services shop on Main Street in Mount Kisco, N.Y., seeking help with his virus-plagued computer.

Mr. Davidson, 58, knows music, not necessarily computers. A pianist, he is president and founder of a nonprofit sacred-music group in Katonah, N.Y., where he lives. He is also the great-grandson and the great-grandnephew of the two brothers who founded Schlumberger Ltd., the giant oilfield-services company.

Mr. Davidson worried that the music he had composed and saved on the computer could be lost. The owner of the shop, Vickram Bedi, 36, confirmed that there was a virus on Mr. Davidson’s computer, a virus Mr. Bedi said was so troublesome that it had also damaged the shop’s computers, officials said.

That was only the beginning. Over time, prosecutors said, Mr. Bedi told Mr. Davidson about an elaborate international conspiracy that had attacked Mr. Davidson’s computer and was threatening Mr. Davidson and his family. The conspiracy allegedly involved a mysterious hard drive in a remote village of Honduras and a plot to infiltrate the United States government by Polish priests linked to Opus Dei. Mr. Bedi persuaded Mr. Davidson to pay the computer shop not only for data retrieval, but for personal protection, the authorities said.

It was, of course, a fraud, officials said. For more than six years, the computer shop, Datalink Computer Products, regularly charged Mr. Davidson’s credit card accounts. The charges totaled more than $6 million, according to the office of the Westchester County district attorney, Janet DiFiore. It took months for investigators with the police in Harrison, N.Y., and other agencies to unravel the many twists and turns of the case.

One such twist was the civil lawsuit that pitted Mr. Davidson and Mr. Bedi against Wachovia Bank and three of the bank’s financial advisers. As co-trustees of the Redwood II F Trust, Mr. Davidson and Mr. Bedi claimed in the lawsuit that the bank had mishandled its $60 million in assets. People who were sued by Mr. Davidson and Mr. Bedi went to the Harrison police in July, setting off the fraud inquiry.

Mr. Bedi and Helga Invarsdottir, 39, who also worked at Datalink, were arrested on Thursday at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., as they were preparing to leave for Iceland, Ms. Invarsdottir’s native country, officials said. They were charged with first-degree grand larceny, and arraigned on Friday at the Village of Mount Kisco Justice Court. Cash bail was set at $3 million for each defendant, and both were ordered to turn in their passports. They were still in custody on Monday.

Mr. Davidson did not return phone calls seeking comment. His Web site describes him as a versatile pianist and composer who specializes in classical music, jazz and various styles of Latin music. He produced Raul Jaurena’s “Te Amo Tango,” which earned a Latin Grammy for Best Tango Album in 2007.

After Mr. Davidson first visited Datalink in August 2004, Mr. Bedi told Mr. Davidson that he and his family were in grave danger, according to the district attorney’s office. The source of the virus, Mr. Bedi later told Mr. Davidson, was found in a hard drive in a village in Honduras, officials said. Mr. Bedi told Mr. Davidson that Mr. Bedi’s uncle — a military officer in India — had flown to Honduras and obtained the hard drive, the authorities said.

Mr. Bedi’s uncle supposedly had learned that Polish priests tied to the conservative Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei were trying to harm Mr. Davidson, the district attorney’s office said. The Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Bedi told Mr. Davidson, was working with him to prevent the priests from infiltrating the United States government, officials said.

Officials said that there did not appear to be other victims.

A call to one of Mr. Davidson’s homes revealed a man’s friendly recorded voice, warning that, “If you leave an ad or any other such message, your telephone wire will be fried automatically.”