Comment on this story
Modesto school district finds its lost data
Recovered computer held information on employees
last updated: March 11, 2008 07:56:27 AM
The High Five
Most Emailed Stories
Related Stories
- Two shot at Modesto taco truck
- Modesto police arrest 4 Beyer High students on drug charges
- Husband killed wife, then self
- Waterford woman dies in car crash
- Directors say lives have been miraculously saved at Modesto Gospel Mission
The High Five are the five most-read stories, updated hourly.
Police have recovered a stolen computer holding the names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers of Modesto City Schools' 3,500 employees.
The computer was stolen last month from a Southern California data processing company.
The Fullerton Police Department announced Monday that tracking software installed on the computer led detectives to a La Habra address, just north of Fullerton, where someone used the computer to log onto the Internet.
Todd Irvine, 43, was arrested Friday and charged with possession of stolen property, said Sgt. Linda King. Irvine is on parole for theft and drug-related charges, King said.
The computer and three monitors were stolen Feb. 11 in an early-morning "window smash" burglary at Systematic Automation Inc. in Fullerton, a company that prints annual, customized benefit statements for each district employee.
District technology director Stan Trevena said investigators will begin a forensic analysis of the computer today. He said the district will know within a couple of days whether someone accessed the employee information stored there.
"They should be able to find out what the computer's been doing," Trevena said.
King said Irvine claimed an "unknown" person dropped the computer off for him to work on and never picked it up. She said detectives had been waiting and watching for activity on the computer using the software.
"Finally, someone used the stolen computer," King said.
Director of Business Services Dennis Snelling said there are still no reports of identity theft since the computer was stolen. No reports of identity theft related to the burglary have been made with the Fullerton police, King said.
Systematic Automation has been under contract with Mo- desto City Schools since 1997.
School district officials said they sent the employee information in an encrypted format, but it was stored unencrypted on Systematic Automation's computer.
For links to police investigation
updates, fraud alert forms and other identity theft prevention information, go to http://mcsid.wordpress.com
Bee staff writer Merrill Balassone can be reached at mbalassone@modbee.com or 578-2337.
Modbee.com is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since Modbee.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The Modesto Bee.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
Copyright © 2008, The Modesto Bee.
