Employee charged with “computer trespass” for allegedly tampering with department’s computer records

Employee charged with “computer trespass” for allegedly tampering with department’s computer records
Saunders v Washington County, 255 AD2d 788

After announcing that she was resigning her from position as payroll clerk with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Mary Lou Saunders told a co-worker, Joanne Murone, she had deleted a budget report from the computer and planned on deleting other files.

Murone reported Saunders’ statement to her superiors and Saunders’ computer access code was deactivated the same day - July 22, 1992.

On July 23, 1992, a current purchase order list could not be retrieved from the computer. It was then discovered that between 9:30 a.m. and 9:42 a.m. “someone had accessed the computer from the communications center using Murone’s access code and deleted over 100 files.” When questioned by the Sheriff, Saunders admitted that she had used Murone’s access code without permission to delete the files, claiming that “she did not intentionally delete current files.”

During a subsequent investigation by the State Police, Saunders “indicated that she had been the subject of harassment at work and readily acknowledged that, after being denied access to the computer system, she used Murone’s code to delete files in an ‘attempt to show the department the value of [her] services.’”

Saunders was arrested and charged with a felony count of “computer trespass” [Penal Law Section 156.10(2)] and a misdemeanor count of tampering with public records ... [Penal Law Section 175.20]. The felony charge was reduced to misdemeanor.

After a jury acquitted Saunders of all charges, she sued the county, alleging “false arrest, malicious prosecution and defamation.” A State Supreme Court justice granted the county’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing Saunders’ petition.

With respect to Saunders’ allegations of false arrest and malicious prosecution, the Appellate Division affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of her complaint, indicating that “the unrefuted evidence in the record, including [Saunders’] own admissions and the statements of her co-workers, supports a finding that a reasonable person would have believed that [Saunders] had committed the crimes for which she was arrested.”

As to Saunders’ defamation claims, which was based on the Sheriff’s Department’s issuing a press release reporting her arrest, the Appellate Division pointed out that “truth constitutes a complete defense to such a claim.”

Since there was no substantive factual dispute that all the statements contained in the press release were true, the Appellate Division held that Saunders’ defamation cause of action was also properly dismissed by the lower court.
NYPPL