Healdsburg school district official suspected of computer crimes

Investigators will recommend that computer crimes charges be filed against a top Healdsburg school district official in a case also involving her husband.

Kestrel Davis Montes, the district’s director of student services, was placed on leave Dec. 1 in relation to the investigation, Healdsburg Unified School District Chris Vanden Heuvel said Friday.

Authorities with the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force have already recommended to the state Attorney General’s office that Davis Montes’ husband, Francisco Montes, be charged with computer crimes.

Montes, who had been the district’s technology support coordinator until mid-2014, is alleged to have hacked into the district’s computer network to send an email in the name of a district employee attacking the Healdsburg High School principal.

The task force, which is funded by the state and overseen by the Marin County District Attorney’s Office, recommended he be charged with crimes related to accessing, damaging and using data or a computer network.

On Friday, the task force’s operations manager, Carl Chapman, said Davis Montes is connected to the alleged crimes as well.

“We believe that she was also involved in the intrusion into the school’s computer system so we’ll also be requesting charges against her,” he said.

Montes declined to comment Friday.

Davis Montes had previously been assistant principal of Healdsburg High School, including for a time when Vanden Heuvel was principal.

The incident involved an Oct. 5 email critical of Healdsburg High principal Lori Rhodes that was sent to Vanden Heuvel, high school staff and the district’s school board from the email account of an elementary school teacher.

It was soon determined that the teacher had not sent the email, Vanden Heuvel said. A subsequent district investigation found that another Internet address, commonly termed an IP address, had entered the district’s computer network and sent the email about Rhodes. The address was traced to Montes’ iPhone.

At that point, the task force was informed.

“When we found that there were possible crimes committed, we notified law enforcement and they started their investigation. We did continue our investigation and that continues to go on,” Vanden Heuvel said.

In an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant served at the couple’s Santa Rosa home, Chapman said that the day before the email was sent, Davis Montes said to a high school employee “something to the effect of, wait and see what happens tomorrow.”

Vanden Heuvel said no confidential data of either students or employees was compromised by the hack. He said he could not comment further on a personnel matter.

Staff Writer Jeremy Hay blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdem ocrat.com. You can reach him at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@jeremyhay