Steve pulled into a spot outside Dr. Babbage’s office a little after 4:15 p.m. Her office was in a small strip mall and he parked under one of the many trees lining the street. While he sat in the parking lot, he called Hamilton to let his client know what was about to happen.
“Jordan, I’m sitting in the computer forensics expert’s parking lot and am about to go in and see exactly what evidence she has uncovered.”
“Look, Steve,” Hamilton replied. “I didn’t do anything. I have no idea what she could have found on my hard drive. If she says she found something she probably planted it there herself.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Steve told the young man at the reception desk that he was there for a four thirty appointment with Dr. Babbage and Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Turner. The man hit a buzzer, and both women soon came out to greet Steve.
Dr. Babbage came over and shook his hand. When their hands touched, Steve felt that familiar jolt and once again he got a little balsa in his pants. He wondered if she felt something, down there, too.
“Nice to see you again, Dr. Babbage,” Steve said while trying to keep his cool.
“You can call me Emily, and it’s nice to see you again too,” she said with a knowing smile.
All three of them walked back to the computer lab where Emily worked. Once in the lab, Steve saw Hamilton’s computer on a workbench. Emily walked over to his client’s computer and sat down, pointing to the chair next to her. “Sit over here where you can see the screen.”
Steve readily obliged and scooted the chair up near her.
Emily began typing on the keyboard and working the mouse. “You see, unless you expertly whitewash your hard drive, nothing you delete ever completely goes away. The computer just moves it to a different section on the hard drive.”
Steve watched the incomprehensible data stream flow by on the screen and asked, “So, what’s that mean?”
“In layman’s terms, everything that is ever typed into your computer stays on the hard drive somewhere, forever,” Emily explained. “When you drag an icon to the trash or delete something, the information doesn’t magically disappear. Instead, the computer labels the information ‘deleted’ and then it knows not to worry about those files. The process allows the computer to complete search requests faster than if it had to look through everything that had ever been typed into it, but the computer never truly erases anything from the hard drive itself. Does that make sense?”
“I think so. Do you mean that when I am typing a letter or document, if I type a word, then hit backspace and change the word, all of that is stored somewhere?”
“Yes. Every time you strike a key on the keypad, a record is kept. So, if you typed the letter ‘I’ and hit backspace once and then typed the letter ‘A,’ I could find the record of all three of those actions. This is called metadata. Another example is the FBI going through Hillary Clinton’s servers to see what emails were sent and received using it. All that information remains on your hard drive, someone just has to know how to find it.”
“So that’s metadata… I see.” Steve could already guess where this was going.
Emily smiled at him. “Unfortunately for your client, I have the training and experience to locate all the files he thought he had deleted. I have thoroughly examined his hard drive and found several files that Mr. Hamilton never wanted anyone to see.” As she continued to speak, her smile widened into a wicked grin. “At least, not anyone from law enforcement.”
Emily began to show Steve the evidence she had found. There were files that showed Hamilton had written checks for fake invoices. Other documents proved he created the fake invoices. Most damning of all, Emily had found a ledger that Hamilton maintained, showing all the money he had embezzled over the past five years from the company.
Emily pointed to the screen. “This Excel sheet details an embezzlement operation that has been going on much longer than your client’s company originally thought, but in the last year, he started taking much larger chunks of money. The bigger amounts are what eventually raised red flags in the accounting department.
“The last part here proves the old adage that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered,” Emily said. “If he had just kept taking amounts less than a thousand dollars, like he did the first few years, he probably would have gotten away with this forever. Once he started taking thousands at a time, it was just a matter of course that he would get caught.”
As Steve mulled over all of the information Emily had managed to pull from Hamilton’s own computer, Turner looked to Steve and said, “I am still willing to work out a plea deal for your guy wherein I will only take into account the current charges which amount to $52,347 in stolen funds. If your client doesn’t want to plea-bargain, I will add new charges based on the total amount of $123,478 that Mr. Hamilton’s spreadsheet shows he has taken. That will not only affect the sentence I think a jury would give him, but it would also be the amount of restitution the court will require him to pay back to his now former employer.
She paused before continuing, “However, I believe the most important issue here is getting some of the victim’s money back. If I send him to prison, there isn’t much chance of that ever happening. So, if your client will agree to waive his preliminary hearing and plead, I will reduce the charges to a misdemeanor and put him on five years’ probation with the understanding that he has to pay back the fifty-two thousand and change during that timeframe. If he pays all of that back, he will never have to spend a night in jail, let alone prison, and he will only have to pay back half of what I honestly think he took. You need to make sure he understands that is one hell of a deal.”
“Well,” Steve said, “I’ll talk to my client, but I can’t give you a final answer until then. As you know, it’s his case, so it’s also his choice.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You defense lawyers tell me that every day. ‘Always the client’s decision.’ I’ll give you till our preliminary hearing to give me an answer. If you waive, you get the deal; if you don’t, I will file more charges.” Turner shrugged. “Now, enough business. It’s five fifteen, and I’ve been hard at it since eight this morning. I could use a drink, and I imagine you could too after what you just saw.
Steve simply nodded in agreement.
“I’m sure that forty-five minutes ago, you actually believed your client was innocent. You young defense attorneys always believe those lying clients. Trust me, you will get over that in due time.” She turned to Emily. “Would you like to join me and Mr. Naïve here for cocktails at The Empire Bar?”
“I would love to,” Emily responded with a smile on her face. “Let me just close up this place, and I will meet you two there shortly.”