Former Fox Cable Networks Group publicity executive Randolph Steven Webster has been sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $22,607 in restitution to his former employer to resolve charges that he illegally listened in on weekly teleconferences at cable network FX and spread the information he gleaned.
Webster could have been sentenced to up to three years in prison, and the Los Angeles District Attorney's office recommended a two-year prison term. But after reviewing the pleadings from both sides, Judge Norman Shapiro delivered the sentence Tuesday in criminal court.
Bail -- amounting to $10,000 posted by Webster -- will be credited toward the restitution and paid to Fox Cable. In addition, Webster will pay $220 in fines and court costs.
Webster left Fox Cable in 2001, and investigators determined that the former executive used access codes he had been given while an employee to dial into telephonic meetings in order to eavesdrop on strategy sessions for more than two years after he left the programmer.
Investigators alleged that Webster was angry after his termination from the company, and he spread information about his former employer to wound his former boss and mentor, FX president Peter Liguori.
Webster pleaded no contest to one count of wiretapping in September.
