I recently had an incededent at work where a co-worker got into my
email account ( figured out my password) and was sending and
receiveing emails as if they where from me.   Theses emails where sent
to the president of the company and were meant to get my direct
supervisor fired.  The emails contained false information regarding my
supervisors job performance and false statements that would encourage
the president to fire my supervisor.

This person also created an AOL screen name that looked almost
Identical to mine, and was sending emails from that account to the
president as well.

THis person also figured out the password of my supervisors email
account and was snooping aroung in his email.

ALL of the emails sent,  looked like they were from me and the
perpitraitor forged my name to all of them.

My company did not believe me and threatend job action against me.

In order to clear my name and resolve this issue
I had to hire a private investigator to trace the emails.  We found
out the perpitraitor, and he fully confessed to all of the above and
more.



Did he do anything Illegal?
Is this identity theft?
Deframation of character?
Interntet crime?

Consult a lawyer. What this guy did is not just a prank.

Any one know what type of  lawyer to consult?

You may be able to find one here
http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/practice/Identity%20Theft

If your investigator has proof that X used a password-protected
account that was dedicated to someone else (you) while you were not
around (implying it couldn't have been you) then that investigator and
you should bring that evidence to the attention of two persons in the
company such as Chief Security officer and HR.  Since most companies
have written policies that require computer accounts to be assigned to
individuals with a unique id and secret password you would have X on a
serious company security breach.

If he used any kind of spyware to harvest your password then the
company might consider that even worse--who else has he done this to
and what proprietary
information could he have peeked. 

The Congress recently passed a federal law making it a criminal
offence to install spyware on a computer that one does not own.

And the following is an interim wording of the legislation.  I am not
sure of its final form. But it did pass federally.

http://www.cdt.org/privacy/spyware/20050210ispy.pdf

Since X does not own the computer (the corporation does) the company
could take that evidence and try to lay a criminal charge.  You would
be their
witness.

I took the proof to the company.   The decided not to terminate this
individual, but did take disiplinary action.

In the true sense of the word spyware has to be inserted into your
personal computer to retreive the password to meet the requirements of
the Fed statute. If X created a similiar e-mail name then that does
not constitute a crime. If it was using a company intranet net
(company e-mail) the company would be responsible for any disciplinary
action. The courts have determined that company intranet sites are
considered public domain (ie: there is no privacy within the
company).If he used your actual AOL account you may have cause for
legal action. Identity theft primarily concerns stealing information
to procure IDs, credit cards, or anything monetary value using one's
personal information. As far as defemation of character, one must
prove damages to have a good case. (damages usually means loss of
income or job termination). This X seems like a bad egg, but if the
company took disciplinary action against this individual and this was
an intranet e-mail action, and there was no damages, there is probably
not much of a civil case.