Rutland man among 2 sentenced for hacking Spectrum Health computer system, selling phones

WORCESTER — Two men, including one from Rutland, have been sentenced to supervised release after admitting to accessing Westborough nonprofit’s Spectrum Health System’s computer systems and selling cellphones intended for staff members.

Patrick Edmonds-Morin, 32, of Connecticut, was sentenced to three years of supervised release Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Worcester, while Nathan Howe, 42, of Rutland, was sentenced to the same period of supervised release last month.

The pair, former IT employees at Spectrum, were charged with hacking and wire-fraud-related crimes in June 2023 after allegations they illegally accessed the company’s systems and sold phones intended for Spectrum employees.

Both Howe and Edmonds-Morin pleaded guilty to the charges, court records show, with a defense lawyer for Howe referring to his crime in court documents as an “unfathomably stupid” one for which he will pay dearly.

Howe’s lawyer, Timothy Watkins, summed up the allegations in court documents by saying Howe, shortly after leaving Spectrum Health, where he supervised IT, “conjured up a series of pranks.

“These pranks featured intrusion into Spectrum’s computer network, targeting a former supervisor Howe feuded with.

“The feud culminated with Howe’s throwing of an electronic switch, resulting in a brief outage of IT operations at Spectrum’s Westborough campus,” which caused a “temporary interruption in providing methadone doses to Spectrum clients that morning.

“The prank was quickly discovered and reversed, and Spectrum administered client medications without further delay,” Watkins wrote.

Watkins said that, in their probe into who breached their systems — a probe that led to Howe and Edmonds-Morin — the company also discovered the pair had ordered more than 300 iPhones from Verizon through Spectrum and sold them on the side for profit.

Watkins wrote in court records that the phones were outdated models that Verizon provided to the nonprofit for about $1 apiece, and argued that the conduct, while wrong, didn’t amount to an actual loss to either Verizon or Spectrum.

A judge in the case appears to have agreed, as both men were ordered to pay about $10,000 in damages to Spectrum for the systems breach but nothing to Verizon. According to Watkins’ sentencing memorandum, the men received more than $100,000 for reselling the phones and Howe "dutifully reported the income from the iPhone sales on his tax returns."

Watkins said his client wasn’t selling the phones to fund a lavish lifestyle but rather to support his wife and seven children. He said that Howe, around the same time as he was charged, lost his eldest child and was fired from his IT job when the allegations surfaced.

Court records show U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman sentenced Howe to three years of supervised release, the first year of which he must spend on home confinement.

The government had asked for a sentence of 21 months imprisonment, according to its sentencing memorandum.

Guzman Wednesday sentenced Edmonds-Morin to three years of supervised release and did not require him to serve home confinement.

Prosecutors did not seek jail time for Edmonds-Morin, recommending supervised release out of fairness given the sentence that Howe had already received.

In court Wednesday, Edmonds-Morin read a lengthy apology letter in which he said he has agonized over his actions daily and was apologizing from the depths of his soul.

Guzman remarked that the apology seemed genuine and said that, given the letters of support affixed to his lawyer’s sentencing memorandum, it was clear he had the support of his family.

"Mr. Edmonds-Morin was very remorseful in this case, and we appreciate Judge Guzman taking that into consideration,” his lawyer, Vikas S. Dhar, wrote in an email following the sentencing. “I believe that the court awarded him a well-deserved, earned second chance."

Watkins similarly wrote in court documents that Howe was extremely remorseful. Both lawyers noted their clients had no prior criminal records.

Howe pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to access a protected computer to obtain information and cause damage, and one count of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer and impairing medical treatment.

Edmonds-Morin pleaded guilty in June 2023 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to access a protected computer to obtain information.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ex-Spectrum Health IT workers sentenced for hacking, selling cellphones