Chief Ronal Serpas today announced there is no evidence that sensitive voter registration information stored on two stolen Election Commission laptop computers was accessed, viewed, or copied.
The police department’s forensic examination of the recovered laptops and their electronic components is now complete. A meticulous check of file registries contained by the computers and their components leads detectives to conclude that the machines were not powered up from the time they were stolen.
An examination of one laptop led to the weekend discovery that it contained a compact disc, created by the Election Commission in 2006, with sensitive voter registration information. The police department has no way of knowing if anyone removed the CD from the laptop and copied it. The CD was fingerprinted over the weekend. No prints were found. Election Commission staff today acknowledged that the CD was likely left in the laptop after November 2006 voting. The investigation to this point has not revealed any evidence of the CD being removed after the Christmas Eve theft of the laptops.
“Nashville’s registered voters can take comfort in knowing that the stolen Election Commission laptops and all of their components are now in police department custody,” Chief Ronal Serpas said. “They can also take comfort in knowing that our highly-trained computer experts have concluded, after days of analysis, that there is no evidence of social security numbers or other sensitive information being accessed, viewed, or copied.”
Chief Serpas expressed his gratitude to Computer Crimes detectives Chad Gish, Tracy Gatwood, Jason Moyer, and Jeff Weaver for working around-the-clock since last Thursday analyzing the recovered computers. He also thanked Identification Officer Billy Merryman, who retired from the police department last week, for carefully processing the Election Commission crime scene and recovering the blood evidence that broke the case.
The criminal investigation by Central Precinct detectives Rick Mavity, Ricky Winfrey and Joe Williams is continuing. More arrests are expected.
Mayor Karl Dean was briefed on the computer analysis over the weekend and earlier today.
“I applaud the police for an outstanding job,” Dean Said. “Strong investigative work and collaboration with other Metro departments has brought us this reassuring news. We need to continue to focus on making sure an incident like this doesn’t happen again in Nashville.”
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