A Salt Lake City man is facing up to 15 years in prison for redirecting and
reading the e-mail of his former employer.
William K. Dobson, 55, was charged Wednesday with two counts of intercepting
electronic communications and one count of illegally obtaining information
from a protected computer.
If convicted, Dobson faces a maximum term of 15 years in prison, three years
of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the monetary
gain or loss.
According to the indictment, after Dobson left the company he co-founded
over financial and business disagreements, he accessed the
company’s e-mail system on two occasions.
The purpose of the intrusion, the indictment claims, was to intercept the
e-mail of the company’s CEO and its vice president of
engineering.
Dobson then rerouted the e-mail to a new, unauthorized e-mail
inbox that Dobson created on the company’s system.
The Department of Justice also alleges Dobson programmed his home computer
to download the e-mails from the company for over a month.
The scheme ended
when the FBI searched his house in connection with the investigation.
The e-mails contained both business and personal information.