Man Accused of Taking Hard Drives From Federal Offices

Nicholas W. Perring, of Olympia, Wash., is suspected of breaking into four offices, all within the same building, on two different days. The hard drives allegedly stolen have not been recovered.

The burglaries showed no signs of forced entry. A female former office employee who was fired for stealing had pawned several items matching the descriptions of those that had been taken from the offices. Perring is the woman’s boyfriend, and detectives say that he also had pawned several items.

The offices belong to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child Support Enforcement, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Federal Highway Administration and Lightspeed Retail.

The first burglary occurred Feb. 5. Several items were taken, including about $600 and two external hard drives from the Office of Child Support Enforcement. Each hard drive contained between 2 million and 5 million individual profiles, which include people’s names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers.

Perring, 28, also allegedly took a government credit card, a laptop, two thumb drives, an iPod, office supplies and a running bra from the Office of Child Support Enforcement.
 
A television remote and a magnifying glass were taken from the National Federation of Independent Business.

On March 7, a second burglary was reported in the building. A camera, a backpack and $39 were taken from the Federal Highway Administration, and two laptops, a computer camera, a Super Nintendo and three Nintendo games were taken from Lightspeed Retail.

Perring admitted to breaking in, but said he didn’t know anything about the hard drives.