Charges dismissed against former Healdsburg school district Student Services Director
05/19/2016
Charges dismissed against former Healdsburg school district official in email hacking case
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | May 19, 2016 BY: JULIE JOHNSON
Charges dismissed against former Healdsburg school district official in email hacking case
The husband of a Healdsburg school official who became embroiled in a computer hacking investigation pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor computer crime in an agreement with prosecutors, authorities said Thursday.
Kestrel Davis Montes was the Healdsburg Unified School District’s director of student services when she and her husband, Francisco Montes, were the focus of a district investigation into a fraudulent email sent to school staff. The email, which complained about a principal, involved hacking into the school’s computer system, said Carl Chapman, a supervising inspector with the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force.
On Wednesday in Judge Arthur Wick’s courtroom, prosecutors dismissed the case against Davis Montes. Francisco Montes pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of illegally accessing a computer system and agreed to pay about $29,000 in restitution to the district, Chapman said.
Francisco Montes, who also formerly worked for the district, was sentenced to a 24-month probation term and 10 days in jail, Chapman said. The judge suspended the jail time, meaning Francisco Montes won’t have to spend a day in jail if he successfully completes the probation time.
Wick dismissed all charges against Davis Montes, who had been accused of conspiring with her husband to commit the crimes. She has been on leave from her job since Dec. 1 because of the investigation.
Investigators had suspected the couple had attempted to complain about the principal anonymously by getting into the email system and sending an email through another person’s account, Chapman said.
Superintendent Chris Vanden Heuvel said the couple has already paid the restitution money to the district. It will go toward the cost of the district’s investigation into computer hacking. Vanden Heuvel said that the case led the district to hire an outside vendor to audit its network security.
You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.