Court Opinion

ID: 9408960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-14 15:00:32.306729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:47.806091
License: Public Domain

21-3089
United States v. Calonge

               United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Second Circuit

                               August Term 2022
                                 No. 21-3089

                           UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                    Appellee,
                                      v.
         MEDGHYNE CALONGE, AKA SEALED DEFENDANT 1,
                      Defendant-Appellant.

            On Appeal from the United States District Court
                for the Southern District of New York

                            ARGUED: MARCH 24, 2023
                             DECIDED: JULY 14, 2023

Before: PARKER, LYNCH, LOHIER, Circuit Judges.

       Defendant-Appellant Medghyne Calonge appeals from a
judgment of conviction in the United States District Court for the
Southern District of New York (Woods, J.). Calonge was convicted on
two counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(a)(5)(A)–(B). On appeal, she argues that the government failed
to prove that venue was proper in the Southern District of New York.
We hold that the government adduced evidence sufficient to prove
that Calonge damaged a protected computer within that District and
that venue was therefore proper. AFFIRMED.

            KENDRA L. HUTCHINSON, Federal Defenders of New
            York, Inc., Appeals Bureau, New York, NY, for Defendant-
            Appellant.

            TIMOTHY V. CAPOZZI, Assistant United States Attorney
            (Louis A. Pellegrino, Won S. Shin, Assistant United
            States Attorneys, Of Counsel), for Damian Williams,
            United States Attorney for the Southern District of New
            York, for Appellee.

PARKER, Circuit Judge:
      Defendant-Appellant Medghyne Calonge appeals from a
judgment of conviction entered in the United States District Court for
the Southern District of New York (Woods, J.) following her
conviction on two counts of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act (“CFAA”). See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A)–(B).
      Calonge’s primary contention in this appeal is that the
government adduced insufficient evidence to prove that venue was
proper in the Southern District of New York. We hold that because
the government’s evidence was sufficient to prove that a protected
computer was damaged in the Southern District of New York, venue

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was appropriate. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of conviction.

                     I.  BACKGROUND
      In 2019, Calonge was hired as the Florida-based human
resources manager of 1-800-Accountant, a virtual accounting firm
that provides accounting services to a variety of businesses. A major
aspect of 1-800-Accountant’s business is the creation and maintenance
of a database of accountants who can be hired by its clients. To
perform these functions, 1-800-Accountant contracted with a software
vendor, JazzHR, to create an applicant tracking system database to
manage recruiting and keep track of the various accountants with
whom 1-800-Account worked. App’x at 74. As a human resources
manager, Calonge had “super administrator” access to the JazzHR
applicant tracking system. Id. Amy Gaspari was Calonge’s supervisor
and was based at the company’s headquarters on Madison Avenue in
Manhattan, New York.
      Calonge struggled with her work responsibilities. In June 2019,
Gaspari concluded that Calonge had improperly locked another
employee out of another human resources software program,
preventing him from performing his job, and decided to terminate
her. On Friday, June 28, 2019, Gaspari had two Florida-based
employees hand-deliver a termination letter to Calonge as Gaspari
informed Calonge of her termination over the phone. After Calonge
was fired, most of her computer log-in credentials were revoked, but
Gaspari neglected to revoke her access to the JazzHR database.
      That weekend, an employee informed Gaspari that he was
unable to access the JazzHR database. On the following Monday,
another employee based, like Gaspari, in New York, informed
Gaspari that she also could not access that database. Eventually,
Gaspari successfully logged in to the JazzHR database but found that

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nearly all the information on it had been deleted, including other
employees’ accounts, 17,000 job applications, documents, resumes,
job postings, and so on. Gaspari contacted JazzHR support staff, who
produced a log showing that an account associated with Calonge had
deleted the data between Friday evening and Sunday morning. 1-800-
Accountant was able to recover a small portion of the lost data, and
even after it spent more than $140,000 and “six or eight weeks or
more” attempting to reconstruct the database after Calonge’s
deletions, the rebuilt database was “just a shell” of its former self.
App’x at 177–78.
      As a result of these deletions, Calonge was prosecuted and
charged with two counts of violating subsections 1030(a)(5)(A) and
1030(a)(5)(B) of the CFAA, 18 U.S.C. § 1030. Section 1030(a)(5)(A)
criminalizes “knowingly caus[ing] the transmission of a program,
code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally
caus[ing] damage without authorization, to a protected computer.”
Section   1030(a)(5)(B),   meanwhile,   criminalizes    “intentionally
access[ing] a protected computer without authorization, and as a
result of such conduct, recklessly caus[ing] damage.”
      At trial, Gaspari was asked specifically about the effect of
Calonge’s weekend spree on Gaspari’s ability to access the deleted
data “from [Gaspari’s] computer in New York,” and “from [her] office
in New York.” App’x at 170–71. She responded that Calonge had
deleted the JazzHR accounts of 13 employees at the Manhattan office
of 1-800-Accountant and that she was herself unable to access the
deleted data from her desktop computer in New York. “We had no
access to any of the data that was deleted,” she explained at trial.
App’x at 170. It was “just gone.” Id.
      In addition, JazzHR’s director of technical operations testified
that the data that Calonge had deleted resided on servers that were

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located in Virginia and California in Amazon Web Services data
centers.
       After the government rested, Calonge moved under Federal
Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 for a judgment of acquittal and
renewed the motion at the conclusion of the trial. She argued that the
evidence was insufficient to prove that venue was proper in the
Southern District of New York because there was no evidence that the
data Calonge deleted physically “resided” in the district. If the data
did not reside in the Southern District of New York, Calonge argued,
she could not have damaged a computer there. The government
argued that venue was proper wherever damage to a protected
computer occurred and that the inability to access the deleted data
from a computer in New York constituted “damage” to that
computer. The district court denied Calonge’s motion and ruled that
venue was proper wherever damage to a protected computer
occurred. Accordingly, the district court charged the jury that “if you
find that the defendant’s actions caused damage to a protected
computer, venue is proper wherever that damage occurred.” App’x
at 577. Calonge was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to
time-served and three years of supervised release. This appeal
followed.

                          II.    DISCUSSION
       The Constitution twice protects defendants’ venue rights. First,
Article III provides that “the Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the
State where the said Crimes shall have been committed.” U.S. Const.
art. III, § 2, cl. 3. In addition, the Sixth Amendment provides that “the
accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an
impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have
been committed.” Id. amend. VI. The purpose of these provisions is to

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“protect defendants from the bias and inconvenience that may attend
trial in a forum other than one in which the crime was committed.”
United States v. Rowe, 414 F.3d 271, 277 (2d Cir. 2005) (citing United
States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275, 278 (1944); United States v. Cores,
356 U.S. 405, 407 (1958)).
      Because venue is not an element of a crime, it can be proven by
a preponderance of the evidence, rather than beyond a reasonable
doubt. United States v. Davis, 689 F.3d 179, 185 (2d Cir. 2012). The
sufficiency of the evidence to support venue is a question of law that
we review de novo. See id.
      In a small subset of cases, determining the location where a
crime was committed is not a straightforward exercise. If an offense
is committed in multiple places – interstate kidnapping, for example
– it may be “prosecuted in any district in which such offense was
begun, continued, or completed.” 18 U.S.C. § 3237; see United States v.
Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 282 (1999).
      The proliferation of Internet-related crimes has further
complicated the issue of appropriate venue. See United States v.
Auernheimer. 748 F.3d 525, 541 (3d. Cir. 2014). In a world increasingly
marked by remote work, it is not unusual that companies like 1-800-
Accountant, based in New York, would manage employees who
work in Florida or other states and handle data that is physically
stored on cloud servers in various locations around the country, and
that is potentially accessible to job applicants or other users in
countless other jurisdictions.
      Despite these technological changes, to determine where venue
is appropriate, we “must initially identify the conduct constituting the
offense (the nature of the crime) and then discern the location of the
commission of the criminal acts.” Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at 279.
In performing this analysis, we must separate “essential conduct

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elements” from “circumstance element[s].” Id. at 280 & n.4. Only
essential conduct elements provide the basis for venue. To determine
the nature of the offense, and which acts constitute “essential conduct
elements,” we must look to the relevant statutory language including,
though not exclusively, the verbs the statute uses. Id. at 280.
      Calonge was convicted under two subsections of the CFAA.
The first criminalizes “knowingly caus[ing] the transmission of a
program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such
conduct, intentionally caus[ing] damage without authorization, to a
protected computer.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A). The second
criminalizes “intentionally access[ing] a protected computer without
authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly caus[ing]
damage.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(B). The statutory definition of
“protected computer” includes, among other things, a computer that
“is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or
communication, including a computer located outside the United
States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign
commerce or communication of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. §
1030(e)(2)(B). As the jury in this case was instructed, that definition
essentially covers every computer connected to the Internet. See
United States v. Valle, 807 F.3d 508, 528 (2d Cir. 2015). Neither party
disputes that Gaspari’s computer was a protected computer. The jury
was also instructed that “damage” under the CFAA covers “any
impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a
system, or information.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(8).
      Each relevant subsection of the CFAA contains at least two
essential conduct elements. The first, § 1030(a)(5)(A), bars (1)
knowingly causing the transmission of a program and (2)
intentionally causing damage. The second subsection bars (1)
intentionally accessing and (2) recklessly causing damage. Venue is

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thus appropriate in any place where Calonge transmitted the
program, obtained access, or caused damage to a protected computer.
The district court was therefore correct to instruct the jury that venue
was appropriate in the Southern District of New York if Calonge
damaged a protected computer within that district.
      Calonge primarily argues that the government’s evidence was
insufficient to prove that a protected computer was damaged in the
Southern District of New York. Calonge Br. at 18–32. We review
sufficiency challenges de novo, and because Calonge was convicted
after a jury trial, we “review the record evidence in the light most
favorable to the government, drawing every reasonable inference in
support of the jury’s verdict.” United States v. Tang Yuk, 885 F.3d 57,
71 (2d Cir. 2018).
       We reject Calonge’s arguments. Constitutionally sound venue
existed in this case so long as the government established by a
preponderance of the evidence that Gaspari’s computer in the
Southern District of New York was damaged by Calonge’s conduct –
in other words, that Calonge caused an “impairment” to the
“availability of data” in the Southern District of New York. 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(e)(8). At trial, Gaspari testified that when she logged into the
JazzHR applicant tracking system from her computer in Manhattan,
she saw that large amounts of data had been deleted and that she
therefore no longer had access to the data. App’x at 157–58, 214.
Drawing reasonable inferences in favor of the jury’s verdict, we
conclude that Gaspari’s testimony that she was unable to access data
stored in the JazzHR database from her computer in New York was
sufficient to establish the only necessary fact for venue: that Calonge
damaged a protected computer located in the Southern District of
New York. There was no need for the government to prove that any

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other employees’ computers were damaged; one damaged computer
was enough. 1
       Calonge argues that Gaspari’s testimony is a “slender reed
upon which to base venue given the uncontroverted, strong evidence
that, in fact, it was JazzHR’s servers in Virginia or California that were
damaged.” Calonge Br. at 25. But venue “may lie in more than one
place if the acts constituting the crime and the nature of the crime
charged implicate more than one location.” Tang Yuk, 885 F.3d at 69
(quoting United States v. Lange, 834 F.3d 58, 68 (2d Cir. 2016)). Venue
in the Southern District of New York could thus be appropriate even
if venue would also have been appropriate in other districts.
       Insofar as Calonge argues that deleting data from the JazzHR
database did not damage any protected computer in New York, see
Oral Argument Audio Recording at 33:52–34:10, we disagree. The text
of the CFAA is clear that preventing a computer from accessing data

1 We also note that Calonge could reasonably have foreseen being tried in
New York, because she attempted to injure – and did injure – a computer
operated in New York by a company headquartered there. In any event,
Calonge has herself disavowed reliance on our “substantial contacts” test,
which we have applied in other cases “in order to ensure that the policies
and considerations underlying the Constitution’s commands respecting
venue have been preserved.” United States v. Saavedra, 223 F.3d 85, 89 (2d
Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Davis, 689 F.3d 179, 186 (2d Cir. 2012)
(explaining that the substantial contacts test “asks whether the acts’
occurrence in the district of venue would have been reasonably foreseeable
to the defendant” (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). She
emphasizes, correctly, that we apply that test only where “the defendant
argues that his prosecution in the contested district will result in a hardship
to him, prejudice to him, or undermine the fairness of his trial.” United States
v. Rasheed, 981 F.3d 187, 194–95 (2d Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Here, by her own account, Calonge has “never argued that the
chosen venue was a hardship, prejudicial, or unfair to Ms. Calonge.”
Calonge Br. at 31.

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that it regularly accesses constitutes “damage” under the statute. The
statute defines damage as “any impairment to the integrity or
availability of data, a program, a system, or information.” 18 U.S.C.
§ 1030(e)(8). The jury was entitled to conclude that Calonge’s actions
impaired the availability of data on the JazzHR system on Gaspari’s
computer. The fact that the deletion might also have damaged the
Amazon servers located in Virginia and California makes no
difference.
      Finally, Calonge contends that United States v. Auernheimer, 748
F.3d 525 (3d. Cir. 2014) compels a different result. We are not
persuaded. In that case, a hacker discovered a flaw in AT&T’s security
processes that allowed him to harvest the email addresses of iPad
owners who used AT&T data services. Id. at 530–31. Auernheimer
was charged with conspiracy to violate the CFAA, specifically, 18
U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C), a subsection under which Calonge was not
charged. 2 Id. at 531. Auernheimer was located in Arkansas, his
coconspirator in California, and the servers that they accessed in
Texas and Georgia. Id. Nevertheless, Auernheimer was prosecuted in
New Jersey, where the government could charge him with a felony
by alleging that his CFAA violation occurred in furtherance of a
violation of New Jersey’s computer crime statute. Id. The case’s only
connection to New Jersey was that some of the AT&T customers
whose email addresses were harvested lived there.
      The Third Circuit reversed Auernheimer’s conviction. It held
that the essential conduct elements of his offense did not involve New
Jersey. The court concluded that the section of the CFAA that
Auernheimer was charged with violating contained two essential

2 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C) criminalizes those who “intentionally accesses a
computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby
obtains … information from any protected computer.”

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conduct        elements:       “accessing without       authorization
and obtaining information.” Id. at 533 (emphasis in original). It then
concluded that “New Jersey was not the site of either essential
conduct element” and that “[n]o protected computer was accessed
and no data was obtained in New Jersey.” Id. at 534. Thus, the fact
that the email addresses of some New Jersey residents were obtained
from AT&T’s servers was merely a “circumstance element” that could
not support venue in New Jersey where the “essential conduct
elements” of the crime all occurred in other states.
      Applying the same analysis to the subsections of the CFAA that
Calonge was convicted of violating, we reach the opposite conclusion.
Here, unlike in Auernheimer, the essential conduct elements of
Calonge’s crime, specifically damaging a protected computer,
occurred in the Southern District of New York. In fact, the Third
Circuit anticipated this result when it expressly contrasted the
provision of the CFAA under which Auernheimer was charged with
the provision under which Calonge was charged, § 1030(a)(5)(B), and
remarked that under § 1030(a)(5)(B), “venue could be proper
wherever” damage was caused. Auernheimer, 748 F.3d at 537. Venue
in the Southern District of New York was therefore appropriate.

                        III.   CONCLUSION
      For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District Court is
AFFIRMED.

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