At two of the stores -- in Long Beach, California and Gainseville, Florida -- Botbyl and Salcedo modified a proprietary piece of software called "tcpcredit" that Lowe's uses to process credit card transactions, building in a virtual wiretap that would store customer's credit card numbers where the hackers could retrieve them later.
Source: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9281

I don't know about you guys, but that sure sounds like a case of "tried to steal" to me.

Something I think you all may be overlooking is that Salcedo was already on probation for computer crimes. This guy is a criminal. He deserves to be put away for a while. However, I do believe that their reasoning that with his activities he *could have* stolen > $2.5 million and therefore should receive a bigger penalty is over the line. If I go out and kick someone's ass with my Taekwondo skills the arguement could be made that I *could have* killed them so should I be charged with murder instead of assault? Intent aside, what did he acually do? Charge him with that and give him the max sentence.

my $.02