SANTA CLARA, CA -- Embattled ex Hewlett-Packard chairman Patricia Dunn now has another badge of dishonor: accused felon.

Dunn appeared in a Santa Clara, CA, courtroom Thursday afternoon to sign a promise to show for her Nov. 17 arraignment. She made no comments, but may have tipped her defense during an interview with 60 Minutes, to be broadcast Sunday. 
According to excerpts of the interview, which were released by CBS yesterday, she launched the probe "at the request of this board to solve a serious problem."

"If you think that Hewlett-Packard is the only company that has an investigations force -- which by the way, is peopled mostly with former law enforcement officers that do all kinds of private detective work, monitoring, posing as other people in order to solve problems to protect shareholder value -- you're being naive," she reportedly told the famous network news program.

Dunn, along with ex HP chief ethics officer Kevin Hunsaker, and private investigators Ronald DeLia, Matthew DePante and Bryan Wagner, each face four felony counts: use of false or fraudulent pretenses to obtain confidential information from a public utility; unauthorized access to computer data; identity theft; and conspiracy to commit each of those crimes.

Each charge carries a fine of up to $10,000 and three years in prison.