Matthew Keys, YouTube Channel Deletion, California 2023

Vacaville Man Jailed for Deleting Employer’s YouTube Channel

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Matthew Keys, 34, of Vacaville, was sentenced to six months in prison for violating the terms of his supervised release by deleting his former employer’s YouTube channel, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced today.

Keys was originally indicted in 2013 for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting. However, this latest offense occurred after he completed his prison sentence and began working at Comstock’s Magazine in Sacramento.

While working at Comstock’s, Keys was responsible for managing the magazine’s website and social media accounts, including a YouTube channel. However, in February 2020, an employee discovered that the password to the Google account associated with the YouTube account no longer functioned, and shortly thereafter, the employee found that links associated with videos on the YouTube account were broken.

Further investigation revealed that Keys had searched Google for the term “how to delete youtube channel” and then executed a command to delete the Comstock’s YouTube channel on February 10, 2020. This deletion resulted in nearly 700 subscriptions to the channel being lost.

U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller found that Keys violated his term of supervised release by committing new crimes: knowingly causing the transmission of command causing damage to a protected computer, and unauthorized destruction of data. In addition to the six-month prison sentence, Judge Mueller also ordered Keys to serve 18 months of supervised release with specific computer monitoring conditions.

“Businesses and individuals are already struggling against threats to the integrity of their data from hackers and data thieves,” Acting U.S. Attorney Talbert said. “They should not also have to worry about data destruction from former employees seeking retribution. Federal law enforcement will vigorously investigate malicious data-deletion with all available tools.”

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Hemesath and Matthew D. Segal prosecuted the case.

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