Angry Employee Deletes 7 Years Worth of Data

Employee, Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., became suspicious when she found a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for an administrative assistant and her boss's phone number listed. She assumed she would be fired so she took revenge.

Cooley entered the architectural office of the company she worked for, Steven E. Hutchins Architects, late Sunday night and deleted seven years worth of drawings and blueprints. The documents were valued at around $2.5 million. Steven Hutchins notified his alarm company and told them that someone had disarmed the alarm around 11:00 AM on Sunday and remained there for about four hours. The alarm was reset at 3:00 PM and there were no signs of forced entry. It didn't take Hutchins long to figure out who had done it. He immediately suspected Cooley, his administrative assistant, since she was the only person who had full access to the files. As Fox News reports:

"She decided to mess up everything for everybody," Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson told reporters. "She just sabotaged the entire business, thinking she was going to get axed."

Police arrested Cooley Monday evening and she was charged with causing damage in excess of $1,000 to computers, equipment, supplies and the network, a felony. Hutchins says he will use a very expensive data-recovery service to recover all the files. Cooley was bailed out of jail the following day of her arrest. She no longer works for Hutchins and as for the job ad in the newspaper; the listing was for Hutchins' wife's company.