NEWARK, N.J. — A Missouri man has been arrested and charged with attempting to extort his former employer, a national industrial company based in Somerset County, New Jersey, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Daniel Rhyne, 57, of Kansas City, Missouri, faces charges of extortion in relation to a threat to cause damage to a protected computer, intentional damage to a protected computer, and wire fraud. Rhyne was arrested on August 27, 2024, and was released after an initial court appearance in Kansas City, Missouri.
According to court documents, Rhyne was employed as a core infrastructure engineer by the New Jersey-based company. On November 25, 2023, several employees received an extortion email from Rhyne, who threatened that all of the company’s IT administrators had been locked out of the network, backups had been deleted, and that additional servers would be shut down each day for 10 days unless a ransom of 20 Bitcoin, equivalent to $750,000 at the time, was paid.
The investigation revealed that Rhyne gained unauthorized access to the company’s systems by remotely accessing an administrator account. He then scheduled various unauthorized tasks on the network, including changing passwords and shutting down servers. Rhyne controlled the email address used to send the extortion demand.
Rhyne faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the extortion charge, up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the intentional damage to a protected computer charge, and up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the wire fraud charge.