Joseph Konopka

Joseph Konopka (born June 24, 1976), better known by his self-invented alias Dr. Ch@os (typically spelled Dr. Chaos by the media), is an American citizen who served 16 years of a 20-year prison sentence for arson, vandalism, and possessing chemical weapons. In 2003 in Illinois, he pleaded guilty to chemical weapons possession for storing cyanide in a disused Chicago subway storage room and was sentenced to 13 years.

In 2004, he pleaded guilty to six felony counts of arson and vandalism, as well as trespassing, and was sentenced to 21 years. These convictions were later overturned on a federal appeal. Konopka pleaded guilty again and was sentenced to an additional seven years.

Life prior to arrest Konopka was born in 1976 in De Pere, Wisconsin. He did not graduate from high school, but later earned a GED. Konopka used the Internet to recruit a group of adolescent disciples he called the "Realm of Ch@os".

Konopka was briefly associated with the Chicago chapter of 2600, a hacker group who publish a magazine of the same name, and hold gatherings and an annual national conference. The FBI visited the April 2002 meeting of the Chicago chapter and questioned members about their knowledge of Konopka.

Arrest In 2002, Konopka, then 25, was arrested by the University of Illinois at Chicago police while trespassing in the steam tunnel system beneath the UIC east campus. The arresting officers found a small vial of white powder in Konopka's possession; tests indicated the powder was sodium cyanide. The subsequent investigation revealed that Konopka had been hoarding potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide in an unused Chicago Transit Authority storeroom in the Chicago 'L' Blue Line subway.

Konopka had picked the locks on several doors in the tunnels, then changed the locks so that he could access the unused rooms freely. Konopka had briefly associated with a Chicago-area urban exploration group in order to obtain information on how to access the large network of unused tunnels and abandoned rooms in Chicago's transit system as well as to lure juveniles to help him.

The cyanide had been stolen from a shuttered warehouse, formerly owned by a water treatment company at 48th and Halsted on Chicago's South Side.

Defense attorney Matthew Madden claimed Konopka's behavior "stems from an abnormal maturation process." He argued that normal adults "realize you can't participate in the destruction of property for your own entertainment — that's just not acceptable."

In 2004, Judge Lynn Adelman sentenced Konopka to 21 years in prison for conspiring to knock out power lines, burn buildings, and damage computers in Wisconsin. Konopka was also ordered to pay more than $435,000 in restitution to victims. Konopka pleaded guilty again and was sentenced to an additional seven years.