‘High ranking’ Orange County police employee demoted after leaking info to reddit
A “high ranking employee” of the Orange County sheriff’s department received a suspension of 120 hours and was demoted to captain after he allowed information not yet released to the public to be posted on reddit via his adult daughter.
Maj. Frank Fabrizio leaked the information to his daughter, Alexis Fabrizio, who added the link to reddit. The leak concerned the case of Edwin McFarlane, a teenager accused of kidnapping. A report that was completed June 30th was able to trace the information back to Fabrizio:
“Major Frank Fabrizio knowingly provided information, which was not public record, in reference to an active criminal case to an outside non-law-enforcement party,” an investigative report states. “The information was in turn incorporated into an article posted on a public Internet site.”
After Ms. Fabrizio posted the information on reddit, she e-mailed her father a link asking for feedback and ostensibly creating a helpful cyber-trail for police to later implicate her dad in the leak. Maj. Fabrizio confirmed to investigators that he had disclosed the information to his daughter, and he accepted the disciplinary action against him:
“In hindsight … all I was trying to do at the time, in my mind, was defend the agency with the facts that had already been out there,” Fabrizio told investigators, according to the report. “I guess I probably did tell her more stuff than I should have.”
Fabrizio has held the position since January 2008. The report found that he “acted with ‘unsatisfactory performance,'” and he was disciplined immediately. Fabrizio is being transferred to the Court Services and Communications Division.
