The FBI Arrest Leads to Mason?

They're heeeeee-re...

Breaking on Patch, the FBI made their FIRST arrest early this morning:

Former IT official Patrick Ricciardi, who was responsible for managing the IT department in City Hall, surrendered to FBI agents on Wednesday morning and will be facing charges of leaking confidential information and intercepting communications that were meant for Mayor Dawn Zimmer, according to a complaint provided to Patch by the U.S. Attorney's office.

Folks... it doesn't stop there. Not only does the government's complaint accuse Ricciardi of improperly accessing a computer without authorization but he confessed to setting up an 'Archive File'  that would "automatically forward all e-mails sent to the Mayor and two high ranking Mayor's Office employees (read: Dan Bryan and Juan Melli) tot he Archive File.

And according to Patch, the emails were forwarded  to at least "two different email accounts".

On May 13th, Da Horsey revealed that the Mason email jihad had resurfaced with a new Resolution- this one less sweeping in scope but still calling for ALL email communications of Mayoral Office employees Juan Melli and Dan Bryan, plus selected 'media'- including Grafix Avenger, Mile Square View and Hoboken Journal.

Here is what Da Horsey wrote on May 13th:

Post election defeat: Beth Mason and Mike Russo go on witch hunt

Coming off the loss of control of the City Council, Councilwoman Beth Mason and Councilman Mike Russo have resurrected their witch hunt to obtain the mayor's staff emails.  This one however comes with a twist.  They want the emails exchanged between the staff and the following publications/people.  This is the order they list it:

The Hoboken Journal, Mile Square View, Graphix Avenger re: Grafix Avenger, Ray Smith of the Hudson Reporter, other reporters, Perry Klaussen of Mason411 (apparently he's some sort of victim here), Sam Briggs, the former campaign manager for the Zimmer for Mayor campaign and Blueline Campaigns who worked on the recent City Council races.

This is Mason's resoution, Co-Sponsored by Mike Russo.

3 days later on May 16th,  the complaint alleges the situation came to light when the 'Archive' file was discovered on Ricciardi's computer by auditors called in to investigate the suspected  IT breech.

So. clearly the confluence of events- the persistent drive by Beth Mason to acquire emails from 2 of the Mayor's staff as the email of these officials were being collected and forwarded to...?

DUH.

"The information was sent to at least two different email accounts, according to the complaint."

The Associated Press has it!  And according to the AP:

 HOBOKEN — A former Hoboken municipal employee is accused of breaking into Mayor Dawn Zimmer's e-mail account and forwarding them to other city officials.

Folks, the frog-march has just begun.

GA called it months ago; that the Mayor's email had been hacked by Ricciardi, a member of the DTR (Data Theft Ring) who also had the passwords and access to all City Hall employee accounts.  And that the resolution was just legal cover to release these emails to the  media and to Hoboken411.

Here's  what GA posted on May 26:

Here's what GA believes happened.

Some weeks ago, Mayor Zimmer, suspicious that the source of leaks of confidential City documents and private communications were from City Hall's IT office called in a team of independent investigators to do  a forensic review of the It Department's hard drives.

GA believes the investigation results prompted the employee 'gag order'- not only to contain the data leakage that Zimmer had independently verified and to put employees on notice, but to establish individual liability should anyone participate in the transfer of leaked material.

GA believes Zimmer took her results to the FBI and surveillance of the IT Office activities under IT Department head Patrick Ricciardi began-- months ago.

Concurrently, before and during the FBI surveillance, GA believes emails had been illegally transferred to a member of this data theft ring (DTR).

GA believes that a determination was made by the ringleader- the recipient of these emails- and her political operatives that one or more of these emails needed to go 'public'.   Pick a reason: to embarrass the mayor and/or selected members of her administration (Dan Bryan and Juan Melli), to embarrass the other party- a reform blogger, perhaps one holding a municipal board position, or an administration critic, to damage the effectiveness or credibility of the critic.  GA guesses the pathological obsession of a known political operative, a DTR member,  drove the whole scheme.

How can illegally-obtained emails go public?

A member of the DTR-- an elected public official on the Hoboken City Council, uses the power of her office to legislate the release of these email communications. 

In other words, legitimize stolen goods by resolution.

The Tell.

Hence, the (first)  Beth Mason-sponsored, Mike Russo co-sponsored resolution demanding the release of ALL email communications between Juan Melli and Dan Bryan.  GA believes that these 2 employees were chosen BASED on the emails that were already illegally obtained and NOT before.  Because those were the ones that City Council member wanted to release.

As soon as GA saw the resolution, I believed Mason already had the emails. And the F.B.I.'s  computer forensics will confirm it, if true.

Now, after this (first) Mason resolution was roundly criticized as being highly wasteful  due to the extraordinary volume of communications, a SECOND version was issued with a list of 12 names. Only THOSE  12 were targeted to have their emails released.

Any rocket scientists on board?   

GA believes the emails warming the hands of this City Council member and her obsessed minion belonged to names on that list. Maybe one or two and the rest of the names were 'padding'.  So here was the Mason  plan:

    STEP 1: Pass the resolution and publicly obtain the emails.
    STEP 2: Leak selected emails to Hoboken411.

But this plan was kneecapped by Mayor Zimmer.  She outsmarted them.  Mason showed us her cards with the resolution that was so transparently cobbled together.

The Tell.

Remember how Hoboken411 rolled out the Ricciardi story?

Is anyone out there willing to give GA some props? Aside from my new boyfriend, Dave  Roberts.

Pretty hysterical, now that Ricciardi is being arraigned in Newark this afternoon and I wouldn't be surprised if Klaussen is in deep doo-doo.

Lots more to come!