news-record.com

The Guilford County's District Attorney's office will not pursue charges against former Summerfield Town Councilman Dwayne Crawford following an investigation of allegations he hacked into the Northwest Observer's online forum earlier this year.

In a letter sent yesterday to Guilford County Sheriff's Detective W.A. Long, District Attorney Douglas Henderson said his office will not pursue the case because of a lack of evidence.

"This office will not prosecute this case because of a glitch in the software of the computer service provider," Henderson wrote. "It makes it all but impossible to prove that Mr. Crawford acquired this information illegally."

In late July, Long said he didn't have the evidence to prove whether Crawford accessed the forum illegally because officials with the newspaper's hosting service, WoWBB, weren't able to provide the necessary login records.

Because the software program refreshed every 24 hours, records that showed who logged in the forum and when, were wiped away, Long said.

Crawford, 39, resigned from the council in late March amid public outcry over whether he had accessed the forum to reveal the identities of anonymous participants.

Crawford publicly admitted using a "glitch" in the forum's software to access the site.

Northwest Observer Editor and Publisher Patti Stokes later compared Crawford's actions to leaving her front door open, someone walking into her house, looking through her things and later boasting about it.

The newspaper's forum shut down last week, as Stokes noted the paper didn't have the resources to moderate the forum as needed.

When reached by phone Wednesday, Crawford declined to comment further on the issue.
Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7157 or rseals@news-record.com