Former CU Employee Makes Unusual Request to Expedite Her Sentencing

Juliana Barile wasted little time to exact revenge against her former employer. Just two days after the $7.9 million Penn South Federal Credit Union fired her, she admitted in court that she deleted more than 20,000 files and 3,500 directories from the New York City credit union’s IT system within 40 minutes.

Out on a $250,000 bond, she is currently waiting for a sentencing hearing to be scheduled, and because Barile wants to move on with her life, she recently made a highly unusual request in a letter asking a federal judge to “expedite sentencing.”

“Ms. Barile is 35 years old and has no criminal history. She was recently married and is anxious to start a family but is hesitant to do so until this matter is resolved,” Barile’s lawyer wrote in the Sept. 24 letter. “With no objection from the Government, we request that she be sentenced as soon as possible once all the necessary steps are completed.”

Those necessary steps include a pre-investigation report that is compiled by a federal probation officer, which may take several weeks or longer before it is finally reviewed by the judge, after which a sentence hearing will be scheduled.

As of Friday afternoon, prosecutors did not respond to Barile’s unusual request to expedite her sentencing, the federal docket showed.

On Aug. 31, Barile pleaded guilty to one count of computer intrusion during a federal court hearing in Brooklyn.

Barile was fired from her position as a part-time employee with the credit union on May 19. Two days later, she remotely accessed Penn South’s file server and deleted 21.3 gigabytes of data, which included files of mortgage loan applications and the credit union’s anti-ransomware protection software. Barile also opened confidential files, including documents containing board minutes of the credit union, according to court documents.

Although Penn South did back up some of the data that Barile destroyed, prosecutors said the credit union has spent more than $10,000, so far, to remediate the IT issues.

On the day she was fired, the credit union requested its IT support firm to disable Barile’s access to Penn South’s computer system, but her access was not disabled, according to court documents.

Even though prosecutors said in a press release that Barile can face up to 10 years in prison, transcripts of her plea hearing indicated that prosecutors may recommend a prison sentence of six to 12 months based on federal sentencing guidelines.

“Protecting private financial data from being compromised or destroyed by unauthorized computer intrusions is an important priority of this office,” Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a prepared statement when Barile pleaded guilty.

Because the former Penn South employee has no criminal history and accepted responsibility for her crime by pleading guilty, her attorney will probably argue for a more lenient sentence that does not include any prison time.

Federal judges generally set a sentencing hearing date about three months after the guilty plea, according to the Federal Defenders of New York, an independent, non-profit corporation, which defends indigent people accused of federal crimes.

However, after Barile pleaded guilty during a court hearing held remotely, U.S. Senior District Court Judge Eric N. Vitaliano did not schedule a date for a sentencing hearing because the federal probation department will conduct its separate investigation to prepare a report. This pre-investigation report’s purpose is to help judges decide on an appropriate sentence for defendants. The PSR is based on the circumstances of the offense, Barile’s life history, health, education, and other information such as an approximate sentencing guideline calculation and recommendation.