15 March 2005 – LAWFUEL – The Law News Network – Defendant Downloaded Proprietary Information, Read Email of
Company President and Deleted Files
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California
announced today that Mark Erfurt, 39, of Orange, California, was sentenced
yesterday in federal court in San Jose to 5 months in prison, 5 months of home
detention, and three years of supervised release for hacking into and damaging the
computer system of Manufacturing Electronic Sales Corporation (MESC), a Santa
Clara-based manufacturing business, and to obstructing justice when he later tried
to destroy evidence of his computer crimes. United States District Court Judge
James Ware also ordered restitution in the amount of $45,000.
On August 31, 2004, Mr. Erfurt pleaded guilty to two counts of a superseding
information, including unauthorized access into a computer and recklessly causing
damage, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1030(a)(5)(A)(ii), 1030(a)(5)(B)(i), and
destruction, alteration and falsification of records in a federal investigation, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1519. U.S.C. Section 1519 was enacted as part of the
reforms in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and prohibits the destruction of or
tampering with any document with the intent to impede any U.S. Government
investigation.
In pleading guilty to these crimes, Mr. Erfurt admitted that, on January 23 and 24,
2003, he hacked into the computer system of MESC by using a computer from his
workplace at a separate company in Irvine, California. Mr. Erfurt had previously
served as the Information Technology Manager and then as Network Manager for MESC.
After gaining unauthorized access to MESC’s computer system, Mr. Erfurt admitted
that he downloaded a proprietary database, read the email account of the company
president, and deleted data from the servers. Mr. Erfurt also admitted to
obstructing justice in the FBI’s ensuing investigation of these events by deleting
data from his new employer’s computers in an effort to destroy the evidence of his
illegal computer intrusions.
The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s Cyber Crime Squad in Oakland. The investigation was overseen by
the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United States
Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Mark L. Krotoski is the
Assistant U.S. Attorney from the CHIP Unit who is prosecuting the case.
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website
at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can . Related court documents and
information may be found on the District Court website at www.cand.uscourts.gov
or on
