If I am not mistaken, he was busted for a device called a Blue Box. Essentially an operator's keypad that had a fourth column of buttons on the right, that generated dual tones that were different from touch tones. With it, you could dial an 800 number, but before they picked up, you could idle the trunk line with a 2600 hertz tone, then dial the number you really wanted. So therefore call long distance without paying any money. For nearly the entire 1980's, I never once put any money in a pay phone. The process is called Phone Phreaking. It was a blast.