Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

School’s email allegedly being held for ransom by fired IT worker

Reprints
School’s email allegedly being held for ransom by fired IT worker

A fired information technology worker allegedly changed the password of a Google account for the online school he worked for, locking the institution out of emails and course materials for more than 2,000 students, a lawsuit states.

Triano Williams worked for the Indianapolis-based American College of Education but was fired in April 2016 after refusing to relocate from his Chicago home for work. Now he’s demanding the school rehire him as a consultant and pay him $200,000 to unlock the information, the Indianapolis Star newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the school alleges in a lawsuit that Mr. Williams installed a new operating system, changed the account's password and erased the hard drive.

A lawyer for Mr. Williams, who is black, has claimed the school mistakenly erased the data, according to the newspaper, and is firing back with a racial discrimination lawsuit. 

Mr. Williams has reportedly failed to attend court hearings and a judge has ordered him to pay the school $248,350 in damages, the newspaper reported.

"The reality is the college created this problem over the course of the last several years as a result of certain business decisions followed by the termination of certain key employees," his attorney wrote in a letter to the college’s attorney, according to the newspaper. 

 

Read Next