ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - A former juvenile probation officer in Florida is facing more than 100 charges for allegedly accessing a crime database and leaking arrest warrants and other documents to alleged members of a drug ring that was actively under investigation, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
113 felony counts
Crystal Lawson, 32, was arrested and booked into jail on 113 felony counts of computer crimes - unauthorized access. The sheriff's office said each count carried a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison.
If convicted on all counts, that would be a total of 575 years in prison.
The backstory:
The Orange County Sheriff's Office said Crystal Lawson was hired as a juvenile probation officer for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in February 2022.
Because of her job, she was granted access to the Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS) database. She was fired in 2022 after she was arrested under suspicion of battery, the sheriff's office said.
After she was fired, her access to the CCIS system was not terminated, the sheriff's office said.
Lawson allegedly accessed the database 106 times between January and May 2026 "to search for active criminal cases that involved members of a Drug Trafficking Organization that was under active criminal investigation," the sheriff's office said. She then allegedly leaked arrest warrants to people under investigation, the report said.
"These leaks resulted in lost evidence, unrecovered assets, and at least one flight to avoid arrest (that person was ultimately apprehended)," OCSO said in a news release.
The Source: The information is from the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the allegations outlined in the arrest affidavit.