Mitnick had a penchant of being a real a-hole. He was always running around, double-crossing people, pissing people off. It finally caught up to him when someone (not Mitnick) broke into Tsutomu Shimomura's system in San Diego. Mitnick did a load of bragging and badmouthing of Shimomura following that Christmas day incident. After that, Shimomura took it on himself to track Mitnick down. It was all over but the shouting then.
By the time all was said and done, two of my colleagues were expert witnesses for the defense in the Mitnick trial. In an odd twist of fate, Mitnick and I even have the same attorney.
Another interesting bit of trivia re: Kevin: He was good friends with Irv Rubin during his childhood in LA. Went to summer camp and practised weapons defense with Irv. Kevin is an interesting dude. His mistake was not stopping when he was ahead. He ripped off a lot of cellphone companies for airtime, and stole code from many companies, including Sun. If he hadn't hacked into Tsutomu's servers, he would never have been on many radar screens. He seems to be doing OK now.
"After that, Shimomura took it on himself to track Mitnick down."
I remember it now. Shimorua was intense, very impressive.