TAMPA — A Palm Harbor man and a New Port Richey man have pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally accessing a restricted national student loan database and violating the Privacy Act, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Len R. Breidert, 47, of New Port Richey, pleaded guilty Wednesday morning before U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins. David M. Brabson, 54, of Palm Harbor, pleaded guilty on July 8. Both men face up to one year in federal prison, a fine of up to $10,000 and one year of supervised release.
Both men worked at loan consolidation companies in Pinellas County, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Both were accused of abusing their access to the National Student Loan Data System, a database kept by the U.S. Department of Education that contains clients' personal and financial information.
Access to the database is restricted by the Privacy Act of 1974 but is allowed for lenders, school financial aid officials and loan consolidation companies.
Brabson abused access to the database as marketing director of University Financial Lending Services in 2007. When the Department of Education terminated certain managers' access to the database, Brabson gave those managers the passwords and user I.D.s of other employees.
Breidert was a senior financial specialist at Student Funding Services in Largo when he used the database to obtain borrowers' personal data without their consent from 2005 to 2007. He also abused other employees' passwords.
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