Former state employee sentenced for data theft

A former Consumer Affairs employee was sentenced to a year in Sacramento County Jail and five years probation today for illegally downloading a personnel file with the names and Social Security numbers of 5,500 state employees and sending it to her private e-mail account.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White gave Rachael Dumbrique, 33, the maximum sentence and ordered her to pay full restitution of up to $122,000 to the state of California. The judge ignored a plea from defense attorney Jeremiah Van Etten to give Dumbrique a sentence of between six and nine months because she had no prior criminal record and was the mother of three children.

"This is a serious matter with a number of significant consequences," White told Dumbrique as he sentenced her.

"Your crime compromised the ID and security of 5,500 state employees."

Rather than being the mistake that Dumbrique claimed it was, White said evidence suggested the incident was a crime planned by Dumbrique and that she also misappropriated other confidential state documents, including what the judge described as "highly confidential" records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In his pre-sentence remarks, Van Etten said Dumbrique "may have been a pawn and preyed upon by another individual" and that some documents found in her garage during a raid "may have been placed there by another person."

He did not name the person in either of those two cases, but The Bee has reported that Dumbrique a year ago married a member of the Mexican Mafia convicted in a street gang killing and serving a life sentence at Corcoran State Prison. She and her convicted felon husband filed for divorce earlier this month.

Dumbrique appeared at the hearing in a wheelchair, sporting a temporary brace on her lower right leg. Medical reports cited by the judge said Dumbrique twisted her ankle last week but X-rays revealed no broken bones.

White agreed to Dumbrique's request to delay beginning her jail term until Dec. 9 so she can get additional medical care and possible surgery to avoid long-term damage.

11/18/2008

Andrew McIntosh

The Sacramento Bee