Ross officer fired, charged with illegal computer use

A Ross police officer charged with computer crimes was fired Monday by township commissioners.

Mark E. Sullivan, 39, of Franklin Park, had been on administrative leave since January. Agents from the state attorney general’s office charged him July 22 with two felony counts of unlawful use of a computer; he was arraigned the next day and released on his own recognizance.

Mr. Sullivan declined comment Wednesday. His preliminary hearing had been moved from earlier in the day to Sept. 11. His lawyer could not be reached for comment.

The AG’s office is accusing Mr. Sullivan, an eight- year veteran with the Ross police, of logging into his department’s computer system as an administrator and accessing files belonging to Chief Joseph Ley and Lt. Matthew Grubb without their permission.

Mr. Sullivan, who was an assistant to the officer who handles the department’s information technology, denied being involved in one of the two breaches for which he is being charged. He provided an

explanation for the other breach, according to a criminal complaint, but his superiors dismissed it.

Mr. Sullivan also claimed that at least 17 people had the administrator password and “any one of them may have accessed the files,” the complaint said.

The complaint noted that Mr. Sullivan was one of those people with an administrator password, but he was not tasked with accessing his supervisors’ computer files.

In January, Ross police asked the attorney general’s office for help after finding that someone used the computer profiles to access files.

The files dealt with an internal disciplinary situation, pending departmental changes and the decision by the Allegheny County district attorney’s office not to pursue charges in a case in which a Ross police officer had been accused of lying.

A private technology company found that the two supervisors’ files had been accessed Jan. 10 from a computer designated “Patrol1.” Additional breaches were later found on a computer called “Patrol2.”

Surveillance footage showed Mr. Sullivan using the “Patrol1” computer on the date and time of the breach, according to the complaint.

The department quickly unplugged the computers and notified officers that tests were being run on them.

That prompted a call from Mr. Sullivan to Lt. Grubb, the complaint said.

“Lt. Grubb said Sullivan was nervous and told him that he was ‘ freaking out’ because he was afraid he was in trouble because he heard the computers had been pulled,” the complaint said.

Mr. Sullivan tried to explain his computer use, but the lieutenant indicated that the explanation did not hold up, according to the complaint.

An investigation concluded that someone with the profile “msullivan” logged into the department’s computer system within a minute of someone logging in as an administrator at the time of the breaches in January and November, the complaint said.

During an interview May 30 with an agent from the attorney general’s office, Mr. Sullivan said he came across the chief’s folder — titled “Chief” — while logged in as an administrator to search for a computer file he couldn’t find dealing with search warrants.

“Sullivan explained that he had not seen the folder previously and being an administrator of the system, he thought he should become familiar with what was in the folder, so he opened it,” the complaint said.

Mr. Sullivan kept looking and looking until he opened about a dozen files before realizing “that he did not need to be familiar with the contents,” the complaint said.

He was never told not to access certain files, Mr. Sullivan said, according to the complaint.

But the department’s lead IT officer told investigators that it was “implied” that he should not access supervisors’ files.