Techie's Revenge Plan Earns Her Jail Time

Patricia Marie Fowler used her tech talents to extract revenge on her former employer after losing her job as an IT technician at a Florida health center. That decision is going to cost the 30 year-old woman 18 months in a federal prison as well as a substantial chunk of change.

U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew sentenced Fowler, a former information technology technician to 18 months in federal prison for committing computer intrusions. The court also ordered her to pay a restitution fee of $17,243.01. She will be placed on supervised release for three years after serving her sentence.

Earlier this fall, a jury found Fowler guilty of computer intrusions that inflicted over $5,000 in damage to the Suncoast Community Health Centers, a non-profit community health center based in Ruskin, Florida.

A few days after SCHC fired Fowler in March for insubordination and failing to follow supervisors' orders, a computer intrusion at the company was detected. Several intrusions followed that left files belonging to SCHC execs deleted from the system. But hat was just for starters. Passwords subsequently got changed, access privileges were removed and pay and vacation accrual rates got scrambled.

When FBI agents interviewed Fowler on July 15, she denied any involvement. But the FBI said she subsequently admitted carrying out the computer intrusion and provided agents with the firewall password she had changed.