The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that the former Information Technology Manager of Creative Explosions, Inc., a Silicon Valley software firm, was indicted today by a federal grand jury on charges that he gained unauthorized access to the computer system of his former employer, reading email of the company's president and damaging the company's computer network. Creative Explosions, Inc., is based in Scotts Valley, California.

The indictment charges Roman Meydbray, 27, of San Jose, California, with two counts of unlawful access to stored communications and one count each of intentionally causing damage to a computer and unauthorized access to a computer, recklessly causing damage. An affidavit filed in support of a search warrant alleges that Mr. Meydbray deleted a domain page of Creative Explosions and made configuration changes to email servers that caused e-mail to be rejected.

According to the indictment, Mr. Meydbray was employed by Creative Explosions from November 2001 to November 7, 2003, originally as Information Technology Manager and then as Network Manager. Creative Explosions is a software development company that produces and sells software programs that enable users to create high quality multimedia websites. The indictment alleges that less than two weeks after the company terminated his employment, Mr. Meydbray gained unauthorized access into Creative Explosions' computer system to change passwords on email accounts, read email of its president, and intentionally and recklessly cause damage.

The maximum statutory penalty for the counts of unlawful access to stored communications and causing reckless damage on a computer is five years in prison. The maximum penalty for intentionally causing damage to a computer is ten years in prison. Each offense also carries a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss whichever is greater; a three year term of supervised release; and $100 mandatory special assessment. An indictment simply contains allegations against an individual and, as with all defendants, Mr. Meydbray must be presumed innocent unless and until convicted.

Mr. Meydbray is expected to make his initial appearance in February 2005 before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in San Jose, but a date has not been set yet.

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.

Date: March 26, 2005
Source: Cybercrime.gov