State official suspended in e-mail spying scheme

dispatch.com

The head of computer-systems security for the Ohio Department of Public Safety was suspended today amid the fallout from an e-mail spying scheme.

David A. Brown, 46, was placed on paid administrative leave from his $94,284-a-year job as the department continues to review employees' roles in a plan to illegally intercept e-mails, said spokeswoman Lindsay Komlanc.

E-mails show that former public-safety lawyer Joshua Engel, who was convicted of illegally intercepting e-mails between department employees and the office of Inspector General Thomas P. Charles, communicated with Brown about the snooping.

Engel was fired and another department lawyer resigned after officials unearthed a scheme set up by Engel to be copied on e-mails between his department and the inspector general's office, Dispatch reporters or former Bureau of Motor Vehicles Registrar Frank Caltrider.

Engel was fined $750 on each of three misdemeanor counts and received 30-day suspended jail sentences on each count Friday.

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