Brittany Dionne reports the update to a case previously noted on this blog:
The man accused of identity theft of more than 5,000 people at TSYS has pleaded guilty.
Drew Johnson pleaded guilty to Unlawful Transfer and Possession or Use of a Means of Identification this morning at the federal courthouse in Columbus.
The 26-year-old was a temporary worker at TSYS. Johnson admitted to emailing personal information of thousands of TSYS employees to his personal gmail account in September.
Read more on WTVM. Dionne’s report states that Johnson was a temporary worker at TSYS, but other reports and records indicated he was employed as a temporary worker at Paragon Benefits, which gave him access to the TSYS employee files as well as those of Kelley Manufacturing. Tim Chitwood of the Ledger-Enquirer reported earlier this month:
Paragon had a computer technician retrace Johnson’s online activity, and the tech discovered Johnson had sent office emails to a personal Gmail account, appending spreadsheets with Paragon client employees’ personal information, authorities said.
The information included names, home addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers – information that could have been used for credit-card fraud or fake income-tax returns, investigators said. Johnson’s job granted him access to the information, but he had no professional reason to view it, authorities said.
Paragon fired Johnson, and on Sept. 17 notified the FBI of the data leak, prompting the investigation that led to his arrest.
Headline corrected to reflect Johnson was not employed by TSYS.