Faked e-mails traced to Baynes' Clarence company
Control board figure denies involvement
Three months ago, during the latest spat between Erie County’s elected officials and their state-appointed control board, someone faked the e-mail addresses of County Executive Chris Collins and Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz in an attempt to embarrass them.
An inquiry by the Erie County attorney has led to the doorstep of Anthony J. Baynes, a businessman who was the control board chairman in June when the phony e-mails circulated. The e-mails emanated from the c o m p uter-network address of Baynes’ company in Clarence.
The e-mails had forwarded an opinion about county finances that directly opposed the views of Collins and Poloncarz. Yet the e-mails were engineered to convince recipients they had come from the county executive and comptroller.
“It has been referred to the district attorney’s office,” County Attorney Cheryl A. Green said of her findings in the matter. But she acknowledged it will be difficult to prosecute — even if District Attorney Frank J. Clark believes a crime occurred, which he does not.
While the computer trail leads to Baynes’ company headquarters, where he runs a shipping-logistics business and other concerns, there is nothing to prove his fingers were on the keyboard.
“I did not send the e-mail, and I do not know who did,” Baynes told The Buffalo News on Tuesday. He indicated he suspected that either an unauthorized company employee or a hacker using his company’s wireless access sent the e-mails “as a political prank against me and certain elected officials.”
Poloncarz doesn’t buy it. “To say that someone hacked in, it boggles the mind,” he said.
Poloncarz said the sender would have had to be familiar with county government and county finances. The sender would have had to know the e-mail addresses of Poloncarz and Collins, as well as the addresses of recipients in Albany and on Wall Street.
No one can prove Baynes sent the messages.
“I don’t know that anything criminal was involved, but I would certainly like to know who did it,” Poloncarz said. “They are denigrating my name and denigrating the county executive’s name because they are putting questions in the minds of people who deal with the county. It only hurts the county in the long run.”
Collins, who lately has enjoyed smoother relations with the control board, did not comment publicly. His spokesman, Grant Loomis, said, “The county executive remains troubled that someone would use his identity in an attempt to mislead people involved in the financial matters of Erie County,” but will reserve comment until the matter is fully resolved.
The tempest unfolded this way: Back in June, Collins, Poloncarz and most county lawmakers were urging the State Legislature to weaken the control board’s power to regulate the way the county borrows money.
Baynes and the other control board directors were insisting they arrange the county’s loans, instead of having them arranged by the publicly elected comptroller. The government could not borrow money for road repairs and other major improvements until the control board was satisfied.
Both sides were battling for public opinion. On June 23, The News Editorial Board urged Albany lawmakers to leave the control board alone. That day, someone went onto the newspaper’s Web site and forwarded the editorial, “Don’t hurt taxpayers,” to some influential state legislators, county legislators and people in the financial community.
The Web site offers a function that lets readers easily forward articles and editorials. But, like many Web sites, it lets the sender type in an e-mail address. The sender at that point can type in any e-mail address as his or her own.
In this case, the sender assigned the county government addresses of Collins or Poloncarz — the two officials least likely to be crowing about an editorial that opposed their views.
The system alerts recipients that “the sender’s e-mail address has not been verified,” but Collins and Poloncarz wanted an investigation. When the Sheriff’s Office questioned whether a crime had been committed, Collins and Poloncarz issued subpoenas, a power granted them by county law.
They first sought records from a California company serving the Web site, Clickability. The company eventually provided documents showing the ISP, or Internet service providers, whose users accessed buffalonews.com on June 23.
The county hired a consultant to review Clickability’s data. The consultant winnowed the list of relevant Internet providers to two and then to one, the Verizon network. When Erie County officials subpoenaed Verizon to identify a specific user, the company refused, Green said. But Verizon did notify the user that he was the subject of a subpoena.
That’s when Baynes closed the loop. He called Green to ask why his company was the focus of an Erie County subpoena.
Baynes also called the Sheriff’s Office, which sent an investigator who determined that his wireless system was not secure. Anyone could get into it from outside the building on Harris Hill Road.
Baynes said he was not even at work on June 23. He has stayed away from the office since Memorial Day, sidelined with the health issues that led him to resign his unpaid post as chairman of the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority on Aug. 4.
Green said the criminal statute at play is criminal impersonation in the second degree, a misdemeanor.
Clark said Tuesday that he doesn’t see a crime because the e-mails only forwarded the editorial. They did not include a message from the sender pretending to be Collins or Poloncarz.
“If you are asking me whether that is criminal impersonation, without something more, the answer is no,” Clark said.
