A friend of mine in 1997 got arrested for poking around in air force computer systems. He was charged with a felony not because he did any damage but because it cost $40k to track him down. He also had to pay that back.

https://attrition.org/~jericho/works/security/crime_punishme...

"Once again, when computer crime enters the equation, circumstances seem to change. In May of 1997, Wendell Dingus was sentenced by a federal court to six months of home monitoring for computer crime activity. Among the systems he admitted to attacking were the U.S. Air Force, NASA and Vanderbilt University. What is different about this case is the court's order for Dingus to repay $40,000 in restitution to the Air Force Information Warfare Center (AFIWC) for their time and effort in helping to track him."