{"id":104083,"date":"2026-02-03T18:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T18:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/104083\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T18:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T18:25:09","slug":"conviction-overturned-judges-toss-case-of-lehigh-valley-cyber-scheme-against-cancer-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/104083\/","title":{"rendered":"Conviction overturned. Judges toss case of Lehigh Valley cyber-scheme against cancer foundation."},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman convicted<\/a> of using a Prostate Cancer Foundation<\/a> computer account without permission to pressure the charity into paying her friend $187,500 had her conviction overturned Friday.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals<\/a> threw out the jury verdict against Frances Eddings, a Florida resident who convinced her Lehigh Valley friend to pursue the scheme<\/a> against the charity.<\/p>\n

According to the Third Circuit ruling, Jude Denis of Upper Macungie Township started working for the foundation on Aug. 14, 2014. She believed she was hired for a full-time job, but learned her job was a temporary, contract position with the potential to become a full-time job, the judges wrote. She backed out of the job on Aug. 21, 2014, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Denis submitted an invoice for a few thousand dollars to cover the time she worked and her expenses, records say. When the foundation didn\u2019t pay her invoice, Eddings allegedly convinced Denis to download sensitive documents from one of the foundation board members and send them to her. Eddings then threatened the board member, saying she\u2019d release the thousands of documents unless Denis was paid $150,000 in \u201cback pay\u201d plus a $37,500 \u201crecovery fee\u201d for Eddings.<\/p>\n

The foundation shut off Denis\u2019 access to the foundation board member\u2019s account on Oct. 1, 2014, and reported Denis and Eddings to the FBI, records say.<\/p>\n

In the dissenting 2-1 opinion, Third Circuit Court Judge Thomas L. Ambro said it\u2019s inaccurate to say Denis used the Prostate Cancer Foundation\u2019s account without authorization. Although she resigned, no one from the foundation expressly forbade her from using the computer. <\/p>\n

Some employees retain the use of a computer after they resign, he wrote. Sometimes they convince an employer to give them a raise to convince them to rescind the resignation, he wrote.<\/p>\n

Denis didn\u2019t hack into the foundation\u2019s system. She was authorized to use it when she was issued her account. The law is misapplied here, Ambro wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have cautioned that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act can become a hammer in search of a nail. This is another such case,\u201d Ambro wrote.<\/p>\n

He said Denis\u2019 and Eddings\u2019 behavior was inappropriate but not criminal. Prosecutors didn\u2019t charge them with extortion because they didn\u2019t have enough evidence to support the charge, he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not condone the conduct of either Denis or Eddings. Far from it. But we hold that, on this record, Eddings did not violate (the law),\u201d Ambro wrote on behalf of himself and Judge Stephanos Bibas.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office had no comment on the Third Circuit\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Judge Tamika R. Montgomery-Reeves wrote a dissenting opinion. She believes that when Eddings resigned from the foundation, she renounced her permission to use the foundation\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

Eddings was 68 years old when she was convicted at trial in April 2022. She was sentenced in October 2023<\/a> to six months of house arrest to be served concurrently with 18 months of probation, according to online federal court records. <\/p>\n

Denis died on July 17, 2022. She was convicted of unauthorized use of a computer but died before she could be sentenced.<\/p>\n

Eddings was represented at trial and during her appeal by attorneys Benjamin Cooper of Philadelphia and Eric Dowdle of Allentown.<\/p>\n

The Third Circuit order remanded the case back to U.S. District Court in December. On Friday, Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Leeson Jr. vacated the judgment against Eddings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman convicted of using a Prostate Cancer Foundation computer account without permission to pressure the charity into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-104083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}