A former Consumer Affairs employee was sentenced to a year in Sacramento County Jail and five years probation today for illegally downloading a personnel file with the names and Social Security numbers of 5,500 state employees and sending it to her private e-mail account.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White gave Rachael Dumbrique, 33, the maximum sentence and ordered her to pay full restitution of up to $122,000 to the state of California. The judge ignored a plea from defense attorney Jeremiah Van Etten to give Dumbrique a sentence of between six and nine months because she had no prior criminal record and was the mother of three children.
"This is a serious matter with a number of significant consequences," White told Dumbrique as he sentenced her.
"Your crime compromised the ID and security of 5,500 state employees."
Rather than being the mistake that Dumbrique claimed it was, White said evidence suggested the incident was a crime planned by Dumbrique and that she also misappropriated other confidential state documents, including what the judge described as "highly confidential" records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In his pre-sentence remarks, Van Etten said Dumbrique "may have been a pawn and preyed upon by another individual" and that some documents found in her garage during a raid "may have been placed there by another person."
He did not name the person in either of those two cases, but The Bee has reported that Dumbrique a year ago married a member of the Mexican Mafia convicted in a street gang killing and serving a life sentence at Corcoran State Prison. She and her convicted felon husband filed for divorce earlier this month.
Dumbrique appeared at the hearing in a wheelchair, sporting a temporary brace on her lower right leg. Medical reports cited by the judge said Dumbrique twisted her ankle last week but X-rays revealed no broken bones.
White agreed to Dumbrique's request to delay beginning her jail term until Dec. 9 so she can get additional medical care and possible surgery to avoid long-term damage.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.