WEST NEW YORK – West New York Mayor Felix Roque and his son Joseph Roque were arrested Thursday morning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The criminal complaint, sent by Deputy Public Affairs Officer Matthew Reilly from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on the same morning and drawn up by F.B.I. Special Agent Ignace Ertilus, lists a series of complaints related to the alleged hacking of the website www.recallroque.com.
Count one of the complaint states that Roque’s son allegedly accessed, caused damage to, and obtained information from protected computers without authorization, and allegedly did the same with the Recall Roque website.
It goes on to state that on Feb. 8, 2012, Joseph allegedly accessed a Go Daddy account and shut down the website without authorization. It also claims the mayor called the Go Daddy account holder on February 9 and said he “had www.recallroque.com taken down by highly placed government officials and that everyone would pay for getting involved against Mayor Roque.”
The complaint lists as part of the background leading up to the arrests that “Mayor Roque and Public Official 1 [listed as an unnamed co-conspirator] thereafter harassed and attempted to intimidate others whom Mayor Roque had learned from defendant Joseph Roque were associated with the Recall Website.”
The arraignment will be held at 1 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark S. Falk in Newark Federal Court. – Gennarose Pope
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