Stephen Solis-Reyes is, by all accounts, exactly what an Ottawa judge who dealt with him said he is: “not the normal criminal.”

A London judge agreed Wednesday to lift a travel ban imposed on the Heartbleed Hacker, part of his conditional sentence for breaking into the federal tax collector’s website in 2014, but not without telling the computer whiz the move is “exceedingly exceptional.”

It pays to be good and Solis-Reyes — a Western University student serving house arrest for his crime, but now free to go to an elite international computer programming competition in California — is very, very good.

“It means a lot, for sure,” Solis-Reyes said outside the London courthouse of the judge’s decision. “I think he is expecting big things from me. He’s expecting what I do in this competition is going to help society and help me in the future.”

The 21-year old Londoner was convicted in May of four charges — two counts of mischief, unauthorized use of a computer and obstructing a police officer — for sending techno-shivers through the federal government in 2014.

That spring, as the income tax-­filing deadline neared for Canadians, Canada Revenue Agency’s website was breached by someone exploiting the so-called Heartbleed computer bug. About 900 social insurance numbers were stolen and the website had to be shut down, the tax deadline extended by a week and the RCMP began investigating.

The Crown ultimately dropped 13 other charges against the Londoner, who maintained he’d broken into the system only to demonstrate its vulnerability.

Soft-spoken, unfailingly polite, the computer science student who appeared in court Wednesday looks far younger than his age.

He’s also super-brainy, the kind of guy who rattles off high 90s in his courses and writes computer code for fun.

That passion has been both his curse, and his good fortune.

Recently, Solis-Reyes was named one of 10 finalists — and the only one from North America — in an international, IBM-sponsored computer programming competition, called Mastering the Mainframe, that drew 15,000 entries worldwide.

He’s now been invited to San Francisco on Sept. 14 to compete for four days. If finishes in the top two places, he goes to Las Vegas for two more days.

But Solis-Reyes is also serving an 18-month conditional sentence, after pleading guilty for demonstrating to the federal government — and the postal service in the Guernsey Islands, off the coast of France — just how vulnerable they were to the Heartbleed computer virus.

In six seconds, he was able to breach Revenue Canada’s security and steal the social insurance numbers — not to use them, but to teach a lesson.

By the time the competition arrives, he will have done his four months of house arrest, but the rest of his sentence requires him to stay in Ontario.

So, all dressed up, with his suit hanging hung loosely on his thin frame, he waited patiently with his parents outside the courtroom for his chance to make a highly unusual request of a judge to vary his sentence.

Superior Court Justice Duncan Grace gave him the green light.

Grace said he was struck by the glowing comments of Justice Lynn Ratushny when she sentenced him in May. She called him “a good person who made a very bad mistake.”

“You are young. You have a bright future, a very bright future,” Ratushny said.

“I strongly recommend to any future employer they consider this young man’s excellent potential and award him employment. He is a young man who has worked hard, who has exemplary values and I don’t expect those values to change.”

Assistant Crown attorney James Spangenberg told Grace he spoke to the RCMP and Solis-Reyes’s probation officer, who said he’s done “very well” during his sentence. But the concern was the sentence would be difficult to enforce if he’s able to travel.

“Allowing for travel would undermine that order,” Spangenberg said.

Defence lawyer Gordon Cudmore said the Ottawa judge’s comments were clearly to encourage his client’s future “to move forward” and not to crush his potential.

Grace agreed. He said the hearing “would have been short” if not for those comments at sentencing and the eloquent letter sent to him by Solis-Reyes,

Last week, Solis-Reyes and his mother went to a tedious scheduling court, waiting all day for a chance to file his sentence variance request.

Grace oversees that court. “I noticed how politely you sat for the entire day,” he said.

He also commented on the student’s “extremely bright future,” and how the conditional sentence was nothing out of the ordinary.

The judge was told Solis-Reyes was born in the United States and has both American and Canadian citizenships and is applying for re-issue of both documents because the’ve expired.

Solis-Reyes told Grace he was willing to travel with his Canadian documentation if necessary, but would need the U.S. paperwork if there were questions about his listed birthplace.

Grace said he still would have to consider what to do about travel documents, but had no questions about Solis-Reyes’ character.

“I have every confidence you will represent yourself, your family and this country positively,” the judge said.

Outside court, Solis-Reyes said he’s grateful for the chance to compete and that his sentence has allowed him to work and go to school.

“Of course, it’s a jail sentence, so it’s not easy, but I think it’s fair,” he said.

“It’s been difficult, but we’re past the hard part and you have to pay the consequences and that’s what I’m going to do and I’ll go from there.”

It’s meant he can still hang on to his dreams. “I think I would like to find work at a nice company as a computer programmer and just write code because it’s what I enjoy.”

Then his eyes lit up.

“I’ve always enjoyed programming and working with computers. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do for a living and I have a chance to do it.”

jsims@postmedia.com

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