Employee Shut Down Avon Lake Company's Website, Indictment Says

LORAIN, OH — A Lorain man is accused of shutting down his employer's web site and computer system after discovering he was going to be fired. The man faces federal charges for damaging his company's computers.

Austyn Keaton, 28, was indicted in federal court last week on one count of damaging protected computers. He worked at a company in Avon Lake, the Department of Justice said.

Keaton was the only IT employee at his company. While working at the company, he got access to the emails of his company's finance director and other employees, the indictment said. He then learned his company was planning on hiring an outside vendor to take over IT operations.

On February 25, 2019, Keaton was asked to meet with the vendor and to transfer access to the company's IT systems. That same day, Keaton went into his finance director's email and learned his company was going to offer him a severance package and then terminate him, the indictment said.

Keaton then locked other employees out of their email accounts, took his company's website offline, blocked other employees from accessing the company's customer relationship management system and did other things to shut down technology at the company, the indictment said.

The investigation into Keaton was led by the FBI, Elyria police and Avon police.