So was anyone at this sentencing or have access to a transcript?
A former Sioux Falls city fire official won’t serve jail time for unlawfully accessing the fire chief’s email account.
A judge on Monday sentenced Patrick Warren to three years of supervised probation and 100 hours of community service.
He pleaded guilty in December to unlawful use of a computer and in exchange, prosecutors dropped 14 other counts against the former division chief.
Warren looked at Fire Chief Jim Sideras’ email account and saw confidential messages between Sideras and Sioux Falls Police Chief Doug Barthel.
Still curious why he was doing this and if he acted alone. Seems shady.
PLEASE tell me this guy also lost his elaborate city pension!!
And if you got fired should you lose the portion of your social security you already paid for?
He should be penalized for life for a crime that will be off his record in 3 years?
I think South DaCola is right, we’re not being told the whole story if he went from getting the book thrown at him to a slap on the wrist.
Transparency in government. Oh wait, this is a business now, they get to keep it secret.
I’m wondering what the fire & police chiefs had to hide. Their communication is somewhat public if it’s on the city Web with city computers. The punishment seems severe. Loosing his job should have been enough. I’m hoping this is an early sign of city employees exposing upper level irregularities. For my court case against the city, the (then) fire chief testified one hearing didn’t happen. I proved it did.
Exactly Dan, as far as I am concerned the emails should be public record within the standards of the FOI Act. I know that the Argus has tried to get access to city emails using the FOI and were denied. Seems odd that someone would be punished for looking at emails of public employees when they are a public employee. Something else is going on here.