California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said crimes were committed in Hewlett-Packard Co.’s investigation of board members, and charges are likely to be brought.

Mr. Lockyer said it’s too early to determine whether company executives or the investigators they hired would be charged. He is probing the company’s use of private investigators who obtained phone records of board members and reporters by using fake identities.

Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard was trying to learn whether directors had leaked board discussions to the media, the company disclosed yesterday.

“It appears that a crime has been committed, we’re convinced of that,” Mr. Lockyer said. “It’s unclear exactly who is liable and how severe it is and who had specific knowledge.”

The practice of disguising your identity to gain access to personal records, called “pretexting,” violates California laws against identify theft and theft of computer information, Mr. Lockyer said. A key question is whether company executives knew or should have known about the tactics the investigators were using, he said.

Mr. Lockyer said charges against Chairwoman Patricia Dunn or others at the company are “possible depending on what the understandings” were.

Mr. Lockyer has issued subpoenas in the case; he declined to say who has received them. Ryan Donovan, an H-P spokesman, said the company hasn’t received any subpoenas in the probe.

Mr. Donovan said the company learned that phone records of journalists were accessed without their knowledge.

“H-P is dismayed that the phone records of journalists were accessed without their knowledge and we are fully cooperating with the attorney general’s investigation,” Mr. Donovan said.