Massachusetts Man Sentenced for Computer Intrusion

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Jonathan Manzi, 31, currently of Beverly, Massachusetts, was sentenced on April 20, 2023, in Lincoln, Nebraska, by Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard for obtaining information from a protected computer.  Manzi was sentenced to 18 months in prison and will also serve a year on supervised release. Manzi was also ordered to pay $655,000 in restitution. 

Manzi was an owner and co-founder of Ink Labs, Inc., a business that specialized in technology to permit its customers and users to upload materials to “the cloud” and then print those uploaded materials at an Ink Labs “kiosk” or other printing location for a fee.  The majority of Ink Labs’ customers are colleges and universities.  One of Ink Labs competitors in this market was Wepa, Inc., a business located in Pelham, Alabama.  The victim identified in the investigation worked at Ink Labs until February, 2017, when he resigned from his position.  The victim later took a job at Wepa, Inc. as a regional sales representative.

In June, 2017, while traveling abroad with his family in Spain, the victim received notifications from both Google regarding his Gmail account and from his cellular provider, AT&T.  These notifications made the victim aware that someone had been attempting to access his device and accounts.  While still in Spain, the victim’s cellular phone lost service.  He contacted AT&T and was told that he had requested that his phone number be moved to a Samsung device.  The victim informed AT&T that he had not authorized this change and asked that his number be moved back to his phone.  On this same day the victim also noticed that he was unable to log into his Gmail account using his credentials. 

Evidence established that on July 1, 2017, Manzi accessed the victim’s Google email account without authorization.  Additionally, Manzi impersonated the victim to AT&T to gain control over the victim’s phone.  Once gaining control, Manzi was able to access the information contained in files and applications on the Google accounts, including access to the victim’s email account and web-based applications.  Manzi then was able to obtain the victim’s login credentials for the Dropbox account for Wepa, Inc., which Manzi then used to access files belonging to Wepa. 

In July, 2017, Manzi again accessed Wepa’s Dropbox account using the victim’s Google account and changed the password of the victim’s Dropbox account. Once Manzi accessed the Wepa, Inc. Dropbox account, Manzi was again able to access information of Wepa, Inc., including customer information.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.