On October 6, 2017, the creator of a social networking site for oil and gas industry professionals was sentenced to a year and a day in prison by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote in the Southern District of New York. David Kent sold the site he founded, Rigzone.com, to DHI Group Inc. (“DHI”), in 2010 for $51 million and later hacked into that site to steal information while launching a competitor site, Oilpro.com.

In December 2016, Kent pled guilty to one count of intentionally accessing a protected computer. In addition to prison time, Kent was sentenced by Judge Cote to serve three years of supervised release, make $3.3 million in restitution, and pay a $20,000 fine. Kent faced a guidelines prison sentence in the range of four years.

After selling Rigzone.com to DHI, Kent founded Oilpro.com in October 2013, shortly after the expiration of his non-compete agreement that followed from the Rigzone sale. By January 2016, Oilpro’s membership had grown to over 500,000 members, accomplished in part, Kent admitted, through the unauthorized access in 2013 and 2016 of Rigzone’s database of resumes, and through which access Kent stole data of more than 700,000 customer accounts. Kent then also attempted to sell Oilpro to DHI at a suggested cost of $20 million or more.

“David Kent admitted to hacking into a competitor’s computer network and stealing client data to boost the value of Oilpro, a company he founded,” said Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim. “Kent then attempted to sell Oilpro – a company he grew using the stolen information – to the very company he had hacked.”

Oilpro operations have since been shut down. Judge Cote has forbidden Kent, as a condition of his future supervised release, of starting any kind of similar venture, which Judge Cote termed a “social media business.”