That isn't a great example. He managed to get his conviction overturned because of the lack of criminal intent, but what he did was pretty stupid.

Rather ill-advisedly, the Perl-programming guru (who's written several books on the subject) tried to prove his worth by running a password cracking package after he'd left in order to produce evidence that security practices had deteriorated since his departure. Instead of re-hiring Schwartz, as he hoped, Intel called in the police and he was charged with hacking offences.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/05/intel_hacker_charges...