The CEO of a New Jersey scientific reference lab is accused of impersonating a vendor technician so as to break right into a rival lab to steal and destroy tools, the Justice Department introduced Friday.

Eric Leykin, 32, of Brooklyn, New York, purchased a cellular phone with pay as you go minutes on June 30, 2022, and proceeded to activate the cellphone and name an worker of a rival scientific reference lab, additionally primarily based in New Jersey.

Mr. Leykin is accused of impersonating a technician working for a vendor paid by the sufferer lab to repair and maintenance tools, organising an appointment to go to mentioned rival lab the subsequent day.

On July 1, Mr. Leykin went to the lab. The worker let Mr. Leykin in, unaware of his alleged scheme.

Mr. Leykin unplugged a backup generator, minimize the wires of the constructing’s surveillance system, broken tools within the lab, in response to his May 24 indictment for wire fraud. 

Mr. Leykin can also be accused of taking 4 laborious drives with affected person info on them from the sufferer lab’s servers, and of creating three computer systems inoperable by taking the laborious drives out.

If convicted on the one rely of wire fraud, Mr. Leykin would resist 20 years in jail and a high-quality of both $250,000 or twice the achieve or loss incurred by the offense, whichever sum is greater.

Neither the indictment nor the Justice Department announcement talked about any theoretical and extra expenses of theft or vandalism towards Mr. Leykin.

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