A disaffected former sysadmin at UBS Paine Webber was sentenced today to 97months without parole for unleashing a logic bomb on the company's network and causing $3m damage.

Roger Duronio, 64, of Bogota, NJ who was found guilty of computer fraud in July was also ordered to make $3.1 million in restitution to UBS Paine Webber. He was sentenced to the maximum term suggested under US sentencing guidelines.

“This was a fitting, appropriately long sentence, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said. "Duronio acted out of misplaced vengeance and greed. He sought to do financial harm to a company and to profit from that, but he failed on both counts."

Duronio, who had worked at UBS for two years, was paid a salary of $125,000 by the bank and was expecting a bonus of $50,000. When he only got $32,000 he resigned and decided to take revenge on the bank. He created the logic bomb which would delete all the files in the host server in the central data centre and then every server in every branch. On March 4, 2002 some 2,000 servers did go down and 400 branch offices were hit. Backup systems did not work and files were deleted.

Expecting the share price of UBS, the parent company of UBS Paine Webber, to fall in response to the damage caused by the logic bomb, Duronia purchased more than $21,000 in put optop contracts for UBS's stock. A put option is a type of security that increases in value when a stock price drops, explains the New Jersey Attorney General's office. But Duronio got it wrong, it says. "Market conditions at the time suggest there was no such impact on the UBS, A.G. stock price."

At his trial it was revealed that the day the "defendant quit UBS he walked out of their offices and straight to his broker’s office to bet against UBS. Duronio’s broker, Gerry Speziale, testified that an angry Duronio came to his office and said words to the effect, 'God knows what I can do to get even'." ®