EDIT: You have to read the complaint in the last link. It sounds like there were some laptops or something that were "lost" and the owner believed he stole them, and filed a police report. That's what the charges stem from.<p><a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/InnocentBeyondAReasonableDoubt/PDF/Complaint.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://s3.amazonaws.com/InnocentBeyondAReasonableDoubt/PDF/C...</a><p>With regards to the allegations of theft, I'm not sure what the author's point is. He repeatedly says he offered to pay the owner back for the missing items. Should that mean that he can't be charged with theft? If I steal something and get caught, should I just be able to offer to pay and avoid prosecution? He repeatedly says that the missing items amount to at most a civil matter, but stealing stuff from work is not a civil matter.<p>For the rest of it, the author doesn't have a leg to stand on. Say instead of an encrypted partition we were talking about a safe. I kept a safe in my office, and one day I was summarily fired and escorted out of the building. I promised that there was no business information or property of my employer in that safe, then refused to hand over the combination. Should the employer leave it at that, saying "gee, if he says he didn't put any business property in the safe, I guess I just have to believe him!"<p>I can understand where the author is coming from (though his writing makes that difficult). The owner is clearly being a huge asshole. But the author is being naive to think that there must be something "fishy" going on. Unfortunately for him, he's on the wrong end of this story. It's so common for disgruntled employees to steal company property or damage company property that nobody is going to give him the benefit of the doubt except the jury, who is legally required to. The author repeatedly mentions the standard for conviction (beyond a reasonable doubt). However, that's not the standard for prosecution, which is closer to "more likely than not."
His timeline and story are all here: <a href="http://www.innocentbeyondareasonabledoubt.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.innocentbeyondareasonabledoubt.com/</a><p>Lesson: Do not ever cooperate with the police.<p>Bo should have just let the original issue (I'm not even sure what that issue was) between he and his employer go to a civil court.
Something is not right about this story. I can't put my finger on it, but the holes in Bo's story make me suspicious. What items were lost originally? What were the circumstances surrounding the lost items? Why wasn't Bo fired immediately after these items were reported missing? Why is Bo offering to pay for any lost items, and why does he seem so eager to do so?<p>Then, as it pertains to the laptop, what the FRICK is Bo doing installing single user pre-boot authentication on a work computer? That is totally out of line, and I wouldn't blame the employer for feeling like his computer was being held hostage by an ex-contractor.<p>I could see the theft charge in that case. If someone installed password-protected full disk encryption on my computer and refused to give me the password, yes, nothing was physically "stolen", but the fact that I'm being denied access to my own data is more-or-less equivalent.<p>The fact that Bo then cuts a check to a detective again makes no sense to me. Why are you paying off law enforcement instead of going through the judicial system? Don't forget, going to court is also there to protect <i>you</i>.
The website isn't exactly presented in a linear fashion, but I gather the issue is the subject's use of Truecrypt to contain his personal files, whereas on a company-owned computer, all data therein is company property.<p>This certainly seems like it should be a civil matter, not something to involve the guys with guns and blue suits. But more to the point, $21.50 an hour for a 1099 job for a huge bag-of-dicks of a boss who pirates all his desktop software? Is that BSA hotline still around, or do they even care about small fries?
The letter of complaint is a lot easier to digest than going through the site<p><a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/InnocentBeyondAReasonableDoubt/PDF/Complaint.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://s3.amazonaws.com/InnocentBeyondAReasonableDoubt/PDF/C...</a>