United States v. Brown

The Fifth Circuit vacated defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to intentionally damaging a protected computer after temporarily disabling a portion of Citibank's network. The court held that defendant's conduct did not have a serious impact on the national economic security and thus his Guidelines range was improperly increased under USSG 2B1.1(b)(18)(A)(iii), which applied to conduct causing a "substantial disruption of a critical infrastructure." In this case, as a result of defendant's actions, Citibank suffered relatively minor financial losses and was temporarily unable to optimally serve its customers. View "United States v. Brown" on Justia Law