A civilian employee at the Lake County Sheriff’s Office was arrested last week after allegedly accessing confidential law enforcement databases without permission, in part to obtain information about her husband and his ex-wife.
Hannah Elizabeth Colon, 30, was a clerk in the agency’s criminal investigations division. An investigation found Colon had been accessing police databases outside the scope of her employment since 2023, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
Suspicion grew after Colon’s coworkers recently saw her ask a detective questions about an upcoming homicide trial while wearing Meta AI glasses, which can record, her arrest affidavit said. The coworkers said the defendant in that case was someone Colon was friends with on Facebook.
It is not clear, however, how the incident with the glasses played into the criminal case.
Colon turned herself in after a warrant was issued for her arrest on charges of unauthorized access to computer systems or networks and has been placed on unpaid leave pending the outcome of her investigation, the release said. Records show she was booked into the Lake County Jail and later released.
The sheriff’s office first became aware of allegations Colon was possibly abusing access to restricted police databases on Oct. 1.
Investigators received historical logs of searches Colon made in multiple databases and conducted a search of her agency-issued computer, the affidavit said, and found in 2023 she had made searches for two names on three different dates in a driver-and-vehicle information database.
Colon identified the two as her husband and his ex-wife when interviewed by detectives. The affidavit said she made one search for the ex-wife in April 2023 and made two searches for the husband in November and December of that year.
She said she remembered the search for the ex-wife and that it would have been to obtain her address number because she was applying for an injunction against her, the affidavit said. Court records show Colon made a request for a stalking injunction against the ex-wife.
Colon acknowledged she shouldn’t have made the search. When asked why her husband couldn’t have given her the address, she said it was because her husband didn’t want her to pursue the injunction and wouldn’t have provided the information, according to the affidavit.
She didn’t recall making searches for her husband, the affidavit said. The husband had no involvement with the agency in 2023 that would have justified Colon searching for him in the database, the affidavit said.
