ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A former probation officer faces over 560 years in prison after she helped warn members of a drug trafficking group that investigators were closing in, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
In a release on Thursday, agents said the woman — identified as Crystal Lawson, 32 — had been granted access to the Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS) database as part of her job as a juvenile probation officer when she was hired in 2022.
Later that same year, she was fired after an arrest for battery, deputies added. But her access to those databases wasn’t cut off.
Between January and May this year, Lawson illegally accessed the database over 100 times, searching for active criminal cases that involved members of a drug trafficking organization that was under investigation, the release reveals.
“Lawson was able to find multiple active, un-served arrest warrants, searched for and identified co-defendants in the criminal case, and leaked active arrest warrants to members and associates of the (group),” the release reads.
The leaks resulted in evidence being lost, unrecovered assets, and at least one flight to avoid arrest, investigators explained.
As such, Lawson was taken into custody and now faces 113 felony counts of computer crimes - unauthorized access, deputies said.
Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison — or 565 years altogether.