Personal e-mails get worker jailed

June 8, 2009 by
Filed under: Employee computer use, Security and law, Special Report 

Internet computer usage

If you caught an employee breaking your Internet use policy, you’d discipline or fire him. But would you also call the police?

That’s what one Ohio employer did after it learned a worker was browsing pornographic sites and uploading nude photos of himself.

Richard Wolf worked for the Shelby City Wastewater Treatment Plant. In April 2006, the plant’s superintendent was deleting old files from the computer network when he stumbled upon a photograph of Wolf in the buff.

Wolf’s computer was searched, and more such images were found, along with more than 700 other pornographic images and several sexually suggestive e-mails.

When confronted, Wolf admitted that he’d joined an online community called “Adult Friend Finder” and used his work computer to upload the self portraits and send them to potential “friends.” He also admitted to viewing porn sites during work hours and, all in all, said he’d spent about 100 hours conducting “personal business” on his work computer.

As you’d probably guess, Wolf was fired. But here’s the twist: He was also arrested.

After the search, the plant superintendent called the police, who charged Wolf with violating a federal law prohibiting users from “exceeding the scope of their authorization to access a computer.”

He was also charged with one count of “theft in office,” in violation of an Ohio law prohibiting the waste of government money by public employees.

Wolf was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in prison, fined $5,000 and ordered to pay the city of Shelby $2,392 in restitution for wages he received while browsing porn.

Justice served?

It’s clear Wolf deserved to be fired. But do you think fining him and throwing him jail was the right outcome? Should the superintendent have even gotten the police involved?

Share your opinion in the comments section below.

Either way, one thing’s for sure: Stories like this highlight the need for employers to monitor computer use and train managers on what to do when they discover violations.

Cite: State v. Wolf

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Comments

22 Comments on Personal e-mails get worker jailed

  1. Serena on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 12:37 pm

    2. Absolutely, I believe proper action was taken. Too many people get away with this type of abuse, it’s about time someone was caught and made to pay the consequences. Keep your personal “stuff” at home…that way you don’t have to worry about whether you get to keep your job or not! If you want to break the law and you involve your employer by using company equipment…that’s your bad not your employers.

  2. JParr on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 1:15 pm

    3. In the corporate world, this would be a civil matter, punishable by “….up to and including termination.”

    What did the computer use policy state? If I read and had to sign a policy stating that improper use of computer / internet facilities may result in “…. up to and including inprisonment”, I would look for a new job!

    Increasingly, it seems like working for the government is more of a risk than it’s worth: Unclear policies, unreasonable requirements, THE POLICE are involved to settle disputes, and you may end up in JAIL!

    I can tell you this: Applying for a government job WILL NOT be my next career move.

  3. CR on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 1:27 pm

    4. When a law is broken, why do we think we should protect the offender? It doesn’t matter where he was when he uploaded this material–he’s still breaking the law.

    It is unreasonable to expect a company handbook/computer policy to state the consequences of breaking civil or criminal laws. We live in a society that expects its citizens to be law abiding and we all know the consequences if we do otherwise.

    JParr, I would be concerned hiring an employee who made your final comment. It sounds like you have reason to fear the police.

  4. mtoomey on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 1:29 pm

    5. According to the article, After the search, the plant superintendent called the police, who charged Wolf with violating a federal law prohibiting users from “exceeding the scope of their authorization to access a computer.”

    Discovering the illegal actions of the employee the supervisor is responsible to report illegal activity. The employee was not sent to prison for violating a company policy but the law.

    Sounds like JPARR needs to explore the difference between policy and law. This was a violation of Federal and state laws – His “corporate world” cannot ignore violations of the law.

    I was not aware of the federal law but it will be included in our orientation material about use of company assets and time.

  5. Don on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:04 pm

    6. Holy roller nonsense.
    Nudity is not a crime. Would the employer have called the police and fired the employee if the employee was uploaded bible verses to a website on company time?

  6. CR on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:07 pm

    7. Don, you are mistaken. Public nudity is a crime. Pornography is a crime. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Bible.

  7. Don on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:15 pm

    8. But he was not nude in public and pornography is NOT a crime in the US. Obscenity is a crime, but what is obscene is debatable and left to “community standards”. Pornography is estimated to be a 4 billion dollar a year business in the US. It’s not even a grey market anymore.
    This guy got railroaded because he posted naked pictures of himself from a work computer. We don’t know if he used the computer for his job, did he do it on his breaks, or any details.
    If the supervisor found pictures of him on the network he should have schooled the guy on how to clean up after himself. Did the supervisor fire & have jailed everyone who left personal file on the network?

  8. Linda on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:29 pm

    9. I always thought pornography WAS a crime. When did it not become a crime?

  9. Don on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:35 pm

    10. If you are at work reading this or posting, you are committing “exceeding the scope of their authorization to access a computer” & “theft in office” yourself.
    Should you do 15 months in prison?
    Add naked pictures of yourself and a dose of holy-roller-itis and voila, YOU get jail time.

  10. Don on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:39 pm

    11. Pornography was never criminal. Obscenity is criminal (at the moment).

  11. CR on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:41 pm

    12. Don, I stand corrected. I did a quick online check and adult pornography is not by itself a crime. With that in mind, the employer was stretching things to call in the police.

    Still I think the employer was correct to fire the man. Many employers have policies for the use of computers and other resources and would be within their rights to let this employee go. He admitted to spending 100 hours conducting personal business online during work hours. That’s 100 hours that his employer paid him and received nothing in return. Now, I guess you can take that and make a case that he stole 100 hours worth of pay from his employer…

  12. Don on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:49 pm

    13. CR, you are correct. Arguably though, if you are at work now, you are doing the same thing.
    15 months is outrageous. And I know people that work in water treatment plants. There is a LOT of time just sitting with nothing to do, particularly the night shift. They read books, watch TV, and surf the internet.
    Shelby City, OH is about 50 miles from me and you can legally buy pornography in the shops that are about 15 miles from Shelby City.

  13. JParr on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 3:51 pm

    14. A couple of points:

    CR: It’s not illegal to look at pornography in, say, a closed office (NOT THAT I WOULD OR DO, JUST THAT IT IS POSSIBLE), and this is not illegal. If it’s done in the office place and NOT in a closed office, there is a clear legal precedent for sexual harassment — still not going to land anyone in jail.

    To say “Pornography is a crime” is not correct — you are stating something that simply isn’t fact.

    To say “It sounds like you have reason to fear the police” is naive. First of all, you’re implying that I engage in illegal behavior, which is simply not correct. This is a mental exercise, and if you can’t distinguish hypothesis from reality, YOU should be locked up before you hurt yourself or someone else. That said, let’s go through THIS HYPOTHETICAL example: let’s say Fred is in a meeting. In the meeting, a handout is held together by paperclip. Fred removes the paperclip from the handout, and at the end of the meeting, puts the paperclip in his pocket. Corporate World: “SO WHAT?” If he’s stealing BOXES of paperclips, we can him. WHAT YOU ARE SAYING though, is that he’s misappropriating government property, and should be arrested….. FOR A PAPERCLIP? The point I’m making is that people who work in the Corporate world (or “the real world”, as we like to call it) have an expectation about REASONABLE vs. UNREASONABLE, and to US (the ones who earn our money in the Corporate wold), it is UNREASONABLE to land in jail for a policy violation.

    mtoomey: Same point. Are you going to arrest Fred? He DID steal that paperclip….. My point to YOU is that this guy should have been made aware of the ADDITIONAL penalty for violating WHAT SHOULD HAVE been a policy.

    To both of you: This guy probably didn’t even REALIZE he was breaking a law. Once the supervisor discovered this situation, they researched the situation to FIND the law he had broken — so nobody was aware, AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM.

    No government jobs for me….. and you two have confirmed it!

  14. KLK on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 4:27 pm

    15. Obscenity or pornography – it doesn’t matter what we call it. Whether he did it on lunch break or during working hours – doesn’t matter. What matters is that he DID IT using a company computer which we all know is company property therefore open to inspection by company officials anytime so he should be fired – period. I believe a worker, especially a public worker being paid by public funds, should be held accountable for their actions – no if’s ands or buts (not meant to be a pun). As far as the police being involved, to me it is no different from a photo shop worker finding improper images and reporting it to the police. We hear about that all the time.

  15. Aaron Hanson on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 4:32 pm

    16. It really doesn’t matter what we think, a law is a law and shoud be enforced.

  16. Mar on Tue, 9th Jun 2009 5:51 pm

    17. <<>>

    Don:

    As a Human Resources professional I would hardly consider reading a HR related newsletter, sent by a reputable HR website, to be outside the scope of my position. Neither would my employer. As a Human Resources professional I am expected to keep up with the latest information needed to do my job.

    Why are you here?

  17. Mrs. L on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 8:04 am

    18. Government job or not, the EE signed off on policy when hired. Violation of the policy is grounds for discipline, which can include termination. The EE knew it and the ER knew it when the infraction was discovered.

    Reading and replying to this thread is no where near “the same thing” – legitimate HR information gathering is why every responder has received this message.

    The fact that government should be held to a standard is necessary. In the water department, EEs have access to information on water department customers. Typically home addresses, possibly SSN if that’s required for city water hook-up, banking information if the customer is on auto bill pay, the possibilities go on.

    The City had to initiate the police investigation in order to protect itself – look at the New York fall out from Elliot Spitzer. Look at the fall out from other cities EEs who have made the news for using ER electronic devices to do their own business and/or exactly what this fellow did.

    What I tell my users is pretty simple – if you would not want your Grandmother to read it or see it, then don’t put it out on the internet – and DEFINITELY don’t use the office resources to do it. I’ll find it and it’s my job to report it. I won’t apologize for doing my job. People who DON’T do their job and waste corporate resources and time (effectively stealing their paycheck – hence the man in question having to repay the city) screwing around always want to blame the person who found them out.

  18. AK HR on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 8:23 am

    19. Some of you are missing the point that he was arrested for “theft in office” not pornography. But that is definitely harsh. If we arrested everyone in government offices that spent any work time doing personal stuff there wouldn’t be enough room in the nation’s prisons to house them all. I do think that the pornography was a mitigating factor that led them to search out a way to arrest him. If he had been uploading bible verses he may still have been fired, but probably not arrested.

  19. mike R on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 9:35 am

    20. This article talks of a person who worked for a PUBLIC organization in OHIO. Working for a private organization, there is far less an employer can do. We had an employee hack our network and was granted unemployment because the Ohio unemployment hearing officer decided that no one “saw” him do it. We presented witnesses that he had bragged about doing it at work and had documentation from a computer expert that found a second account on his computer with his name as the user name.

    It might be worthwhile to point out that this happened in OHIO the state that brought us “Coingate” with political investment of BWC funds into political campaigns, offshore accounts in Bermuda, and rare gold coins.

  20. Don on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 10:35 am

    21. If this case included “child” pornography or some other form of obscenity, then KLK’s argument would be rational, but this case only included nude photos of the employee himself. Assuming these photos are the same type of photo that can be purchased at the newstand (playgirl or penthouse) then the content itself is not criminal.
    Using a computer at work for personal use is an action performed by all IT professionals. It is unrealistic to think it could or should be stopped. Did you use Twitter today? or edit your Facebook profile? Took a phone call from mom? No problem. But nudie pictures get political and this poor guy sure did need a better lawyer! I hope he could afford an appeal.
    I’d like to see the analysis of all the other employees personal use of the computers in the office to see if the policy is applied fairly.

  21. Neil on Wed, 10th Jun 2009 11:15 am

    22. There has to be consistency in enforcing laws. Terminating the man and making him return the unearned pay makes sense. If you want to jail people for theft of time then enforce it without regard to why the person was stealing.

  22. Janet in California on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 11:12 am

    23. Of course this employee went way over the line using a business computer for porno, obscenity, and using the Adult Friend Finder while being paid a salary.

    Is anyone seeing the huge employer liability with this sort of activity under the laws prohibiting SEXUAL HARASSMENT in the workplace? This sort of employee activity cannot be tolerated and what employer wouldn’t fire him, pronto?