[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
OCTOBER 28, 2011
No. 10-15850
Non-Argument Calendar JOHN LEY
CLERK
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 8:10-cr-00065-SCB-AEP-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff-Appellee,
versus
PATRICIA MARIE FOWLER,
a.k.a. Patty Fowler,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llDefendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(October 28, 2011)
Before PRYOR, MARTIN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Patricia Marie Fowler appeals her conviction for intentionally causing
damage to a protected computer. 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A), (c)(4)(B)(i). Fowler
argues that the United States failed to prove that her offense involved a protected
computer or caused a loss that exceeded $5,000. We affirm.
We review “de novo the denial of a motion for acquittal and the sufficiency
of the evidence to sustain a conviction.” United States v. Tampas, 493 F.3d 1291,
1297 (11th Cir. 2007). We view the evidence “in the light most favorable to the
government and draw[] ‘all reasonable inferences and credibility choices in favor
of the jury’s verdict.’” Id. at 1297–98 (quoting United States v. Evans, 344 F.3d
1131, 1134 (11th Cir. 2003)).
Substantial evidence supports the finding of the jury that Fowler
“knowingly caused the transmission of a program, information, code, or
command” that “intentionally cause[d] damage without authorization[] to a
protected computer,” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A), which was “used in or affect[ed]
interstate or foreign commerce or communication,” id. § 1030(e)(2)(B). Fowler
admitted to a federal agent that, after she was fired from her position as a system
administrator for Suncoast Community Health Centers, she changed the password
for the firewall. At trial, Bill Windham, a network system operator at Suncoast,
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testified that, without access to the firewall, Suncoast could not control “activity
inward” to their systems. Two officers of Suncoast, Brantz Roszel and Tom
Brown, testified that Fowler also disabled all the administrator accounts,
obstructed access to the domain controllers, disconnected backup systems,
reformatted a hard drive on Roszel’s computer, and transferred eight years of
reports from Brown’s computer into an obscure subdirectory on the company
server. Fowler’s interference with the computer system left Suncoast employees
unable to exchange email or check email remotely. Fowler’s misconduct also
interrupted employees’ ability to access patients’ health records, verify patients’
eligibility for Medicaid, or communicate with laboratories and outside healthcare
agencies through the internet, which “is an instrumentality of interstate
commerce,” United States v. Hornaday, 392 F.3d 1306, 1311 (11th Cir. 2004).
Substantial evidence also supports the finding of the jury that Fowler’s
interference caused “loss to 1 or more persons during [a] 1-year period” that
“aggregat[ed] at least $5,000 in value.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(4)(A)(i)(I). Suncoast
expended over $6,000 for Roszel, Brown, and Windham to “respond[] to
[Fowler’s] offense, conduct[] a damage assessment, and restor[e] the data,
program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense.” Id. §
1030(e)(11). Roszel, Brown, and Windham testified that they were required to
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access and reconfigure the administrator account, restore email and other normal
computer functions for employees, assess and later replace the firewall, and
recover administrative files. Suncoast also had further “cost[s] incurred” in paying
Health Choice Network $3,941.27 to repair the computer system. Id. Victor
Rodriguez, the director of technology operations at Health Choice, testified that he
reset the administrator password for the Suncoast network, reconfigured its
services to match the password, and investigated the interference with the
Suncoast system. During his investigation, Rodriguez discovered that Fowler had
established an employee account under the name “Peggie Davis” that contained
full administrative rights and that Fowler could use after she was fired to access
the Suncoast computer system.
We AFFIRM Fowler’s conviction.
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