A Palm Beach County election volunteer was arrested Saturday night for allegedly stealing an encrypted access key from a voter registration terminal during a training session on March 19, ahead of the special election scheduled for March 24.
According to a news release from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, photos from the training session captured John Panicci, 59, in the act of theft. However, the incident was not reported until March 27, three days after the election, as reported by the Palm Beach Post:
Detectives obtained a warrant to search his home and recovered the key as well as a large number of electronic and digital-storage devices, according to the sheriff’s news release. They took him into custody late on Saturday, March 28.
Panicci faces charges of property crimes and theft charges related to the destruction, taking or damaging of computer equipment. The Florida Statutes list penalties ranging from five to 30 years in prison if convicted.
County Judge Frank Castor set Panicci’s bail at $6,000 during a hearing on Sunday, March 29, at the jail, according to court records. An initial case conference is scheduled for May 21 before Circuit Judge Sherri Collins.
Per the Sheriff’s Office: “While the key was configured solely for training databases, there was concern that a knowledgeable individual could potentially reverse engineer the encryption and reintroduce it into a voter registration kiosk for malicious purposes.”
Panicci describes himself as a “huge tech nerd, car guy and photographer” on his Facebook profile. It also states he studied computer programming at the University of Maryland, and that he’s currently self-employed in “computer consulting and repair.” Also, the page references a t-shirt store on Etsy he’s “struggling to get off the ground.”
His Facebook page also contains ample evidence of Panicci’s Trump Derangement Syndrome – with an increase in the days just prior to the election volunteer training:
Given his background in technology, visible financial difficulties, and what some might call Trump Derangement Syndrome, I can only assume that his holding the encrypted access key was merely a coincidence…right?
