(HOUSTON, Texas) – Danielle Duann, a former employee of the Life Gift Organ Donation Center in Houston, Texas, has been indicted for intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, United States Attorney Don DeGabrielle announced today. FBI agents arrested Duann this morning without incident and is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court later today. 

The indictment charges that in November 2005, Duann, 50, of Houston, illegally accessed a computer network belonging to Life Gift Organ Donation Center and intentionally deleted organ donation database records and accounting invoice files from the network. Life Gift is an organ donation center that coordinates the newly donated organs with possible recipients in more than 200 hospitals throughout the southwest region of the United States. 

In the fall of 2005, Duann was terminated from her position as Director of Information Technology and revoked all her previous administrative rights and passwords into the system’s network. It is alleged that from Nov. 7, 2005, and continuing into Nov. 8, 2005, Duann gained access, without authorization, into Life Gift’s computer network and issued commands to delete numerous computer programs and database files. These deleted database files dealt with organ donor information and other related organ and tissue recovery work performed by Life Gift. As a result of the intrusion and the deletion of program and database files, Life Gift incurred a loss of more than $70,000.   

If convicted, Duann faces a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

The case was investigated by the FBI and is being jointly prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section in Washington, D.C. Trial Attorney Tom Dukes and Special Assistant United States Attorney Bret W. Davis will be prosecuting the case.