CLEVELAND (AP) -- A jail guard has been indicted on charges of deleting computer records of nearly 500 court protection orders, allegedly while trying to erase an order involving a friend.
Protection orders typically are issued to prohibit suspects of spousal abuse or stalking from having contact with a victim.
Hector Delgado, 32, was indicted Tuesday on felony counts of tampering with records and unauthorized use of a computer. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Prosecutors suspect he accidentally erased all 497 orders recorded in the city from December to March 24 while trying to delete one that was issued against a friend. Prosecutor’s spokeswoman Kim Kowalski said Wednesday she couldn’t characterize the complaint against the friend, who had not been charged.
Records of the orders have been restored. The prosecutor’s office had no reports that anyone was harmed because of the deleted records, Kowalski said.
The gap in the records was discovered by a court clerk about two weeks after the March 24 erasures, Prosecutor Bill Mason said. Investigators linked the deletions to Delgado’s computer logon.
There was no comment Wednesday from Delgado. The only local phone under his name is unlisted.