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Criminal Law Keyed to Gershowitz
DiMaio v. Commonwealth
Citation:
272 Va. 504, 636 S.E.2d 456.Facts
The defendant was employed as the director of human resources for S&M Brands, Inc. He was fired. When a replacement was hired, they discovered that certain files that had been located on the computer that S&M Brands had issued to the defendant were missing. S&M Brands’ entire human resource directory, including business forms and templates, had been removed from the computer. Approximately 829 personnel files were missing. Additionally, signed covenants not to compete that S&M Brands had executed with its employees had been physically removed from S&M Brands’ premises.
S&M contacted the defendant and inquired about the missing computer data. The defendant responded that he had transferred the computer documents to an off-site server and that he would be “willing to provide the files to the company under the right circumstances.”
The defendant was charged with computer fraud and larceny. At trial, the company testified that the fair market value of the files exceeded $10,000. Counsel for S&M Brands testified that the fair market value of just the computer files that the defendant took “would run you somewhere at $3,790 . . . for a HR software package that would cover a sliver of the forms that we had” and would not exceed $5,000.
The defendant was convicted. He appealed, arguing that the state failed to establish the value of the computer records and, therefore, the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions.
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