Thief forced to pay nearly $10K for stolen laptop data

July 16, 2011 By Mike Flacy

How much value should the legal system put on stolen data and the time it takes to rebuild it? One Utah court has upheld a sizable fine against an admitted laptop thief.

During April 2008, Michael J. Birkeland decided it would be a brilliant idea to steal a laptop computer from a Utah Valley University classroom. The laptop belonged to Perry Stewart, an art professor at UVU. Stewart primarily used the laptop for lectures, thus his coursework and presentations were stored on the computer. Two days later, the computer was recovered from Birkeland, but all of Stewart’s files had been erased. Birkeland admitted to the crime and pleaded no contest to theft, a class A misdemeanor.

Stewart attempted to recover the deleted data and was able to regain access to over 27,000 files by using a recovery service. The recovered files were usable, but required approximately 350 hours to organize and rename the files. In addition, Stewart was forced to recreate over 100 PowerPoint presentations for lectures that were unable to be recovered. The state estimated that each presentation required six hours to create and totaled out Stewart’s entire recovery time at 950 hours.

Based on Stewart’s recovery time, the state argued that Birkeland should provide financial restitution in the amount of $47,500 ($50 an hour for time spent recovering files). Birkeland opposed the ruling on the grounds that the misdemeanor charge had a limit of $1,000 in damages and Stewart would be getting paid anyway due to the salary structure of the position. After listening to both arguments, the district court ruled against Birkeland’s misdemeanor claim, but adjusted financial restitution to the amount of time spent beyond the salaried position at the university. Birkeland was ordered to pay for 25 percent of the 950 hours at a rate of $41 an hour, a total of $9,758.

Birkeland appealed the ruling, but judges Carolyn McHugh and Stephen Roth found Birkeland’s admission of guilt more than enough justification to uphold the financial award. They also believed that deletion of the files was intended to allow Birkeland to sell the laptop quickly on a third party service like Craigslist or eBay.

Showing 8 comments

ppmartin at 11:17am 18th July 2011 I would have requested the thief to pay the full estimated cost, reduced only by the amount of taxes, assuming such payment represented a "net of taxes" income for the victim. From a general point of view, thieves should systematically be made to pay back their victims - and the same goes for those who destroy property. If they do not have the money, they should then be "enrolled" in some public service duty, the proceeds of such work to be used - at least in part - to compensate the victim(s).
1. Ian Bell at 11:25am 18th July 2011 After thinking about this, $10K wouldn't be enough in my opinion. I'm sure Stewart had to pay his attorney the majority of that $10K (well at least 30%) leaving him with little after taxes like you pointed out. Maybe $50K makes more sense.
Alan Trbizan at 6:04am 18th July 2011 Hm... 27.000 usable files... over 100 PP presentations... and NO backup? Hm... disapointing. But still think that 10.000 in too low.
Ian Bell at 6:21pm 17th July 2011 What an idea for stealing it. $10K sounds fair to me.
Barb Cutter at 9:46pm 17th July 2011 What ever the Judge darn well sees fit!! I have NO sympathy for the thief!!
Bernd Currie at 8:55pm 17th July 2011 What if it was life support data and someone died?
Robert Stamm at 1:02pm 17th July 2011 Dam Expensive Files ,,But thats what he gets
Dan Gaul at 7:38pm 16th July 2011 I think he should of had to pay the full amount. Punishment like this is better than him spending time in jail IMHO.