UF IT Specialist charged with stealing 10 new computers from UF and selling them online
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Charles Timothy Wyland, 44, an IT Specialist at UF, was arrested yesterday and charged with stealing 10 new computers from UF and selling them online.
According to the University of Florida Police Department Officer who investigated the case, Wyland was one of four people with access to the storage room where the computers were kept in Walker Hall and was not authorized to take them from the building. The computers were reportedly stolen on July 8.
The officer interviewed Wyland on September 6 and reported that Wyland said his accounts had been hacked a month ago, but the officer noted that the eBay and Facebook Marketplace listings had been created two months before the interview.
The officer also noted that the Nike slides worn by Wyland during the interview could be seen in the background in the pictures for the listings to sell the computers. Wyland allegedly listed new Dell OptiPlex 7070 computers for $350 and new Dell OptiPlex 7020 computers for $850.
A subpoena to Meta Platforms reportedly found that the phone number for the Facebook Marketplace account matched Wyland’s number, and the eBay account was also reportedly found to be owned by Wyland.
Wyland has been charged with 10 counts of grand theft and six counts of dealing in stolen property over the internet (some sales reportedly involved multiple computers). He has no criminal convictions; he was arrested in 2023 for domestic battery, but the charge was later dropped.
A second sworn complaint has been filed against Wyland, but he has not yet been booked on those charges. That report states that Wyland’s eBay account showed 25 listings for property belonging to UF; the cost of the property reportedly exceeds $49,000. That sworn complaint lists 34 counts of grand theft, two counts of petit theft, and 25 counts of dealing in stolen property over the internet.
Judge Donna Keim set bail on the original 16 charges at $30,000, the amount set by Judge William Davis in a warrant for Wyland’s arrest.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
What a ding dong head.
He looks like the man off the Adams family
LOL..uncle Fester!!
Doh! Nerds aren’t very good at big picture planning a crime, or anything else with obvious bad consequences. This is why we cannot “trust the science”, they’re really dumb, folks.
This has nothing to do with being a nerd (socially awkward) or geek (overenthusiastic). This is an average person, with a run-of-the-mill IT job at UF, who committed an average crime. And it certainly has nothing to do with science, which is simply a process of observing, hypothesizing, experimenting, and theorizing. He’s in the same category as a convenience store clerk who nips a few extra scratch-off tickets thinking that they won’t be missed, or a contractor who bills a customer for a few extra supplies that were never used.
Lots of stolen merch on Ebay. However, transaction provides a method of tracking down the miscreants. I remember a case of a man who worked for the government forestry dept. who stole chainsaws and sold them on eBay after a hurricane. He forgot to take out the warranty registration cards from the boxes and when the buyer tried to register their chainsaw the company contacted FBI and tracked him down.
Bummer dummer n Bummer.
I T tech . Honestly 😳 college is like an extension of “the government 🙄 “.
Computers 🖥 are machines that operate on numbers and a specific operator like a jet fighters… adjusting my seat as I absorbed the thief. Lies lies a mistake 😴 🙃.
Can someone translate this word salad for me?
Looks like it was written by Kamala Harris.
Guy steals computers and sells them online. But I don’t know how any of this is too complicated for you to read.
I’m referring to Cynthia Binder’s comment, not to the original article. Maybe your BigPP is making that too complicated for you to understand.
Cynthia my dear, are you well?
I knew he’ll eventually get caught! Thanks law enforcement for getting this thug off the campus streets!
Boogy Girl, has he done this before?
You big dummy
I hope it was worth it, stealing from your former employer, now you have no job and no doubt lost any retirement you’d accumulated and nobody will hire you. Greed makes people do such stupid things.
The guy likely could have done well with a good job like this.
All gone now.
Not surprised that UF is constantly have our “secure” data hacked.
You’d think a computer guy would know there’s always a digital trail of who done it. SMDH.
An IT specialist who isn’t smart enough to keep his identity secret when selling stolen goods online. How did he ever get hired?