MINNEAPOLIS — A former Minnesota Timberwolves employee is accused of stealing a hard drive containing "strategic NBA information" from a laptop owned by the Wolves' Executive Vice President, Sachin Gupta.
Prosecutors charged Somak Sarkar, 33, with felony third-degree burglary in Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday.
A criminal complaint said Sarkar stole the hard drive from Gupta's downtown Minneapolis office on Saturday, Feb. 3.
The hard drive had both personal and business information on it. The business information, which belongs to the Timberwolves, "included employment and player contracts, as well as strategic NBA information," the criminal complaint states.
On Monday, Feb. 5, Gupta discovered the hard drive missing when he returned from the weekend.
Security video captured Sarkar entering Gupta's office and "Sarkar entered the office twice after looking to see if anyone could see him. He then left," the complaint stated.
According to the court documents, Sarkar was "immediately fired."
The complaint said another Timberwolves employee was able to recover the hard drive from Sarkar.
The team sent the hard drive and Sarkar's work laptop to a computer forensic company for analysis.
The forensic company determined that Sarkar's laptop was used to open some of the files on the hard drive.
They found that over 5,000 files had been downloaded onto another device. Sarkar was arrested on Monday.
Sarkar told police he had the hard drive to "put some stuff on it" and forgot to return it.
Investigators found several hard drives, USBs, a computer and three tablets at Sarkar's apartment.
After getting a second warrant, investigators learned that one of the devices contained all the information from Gupta's stolen hard drive, according to the complaint.
On Monday, March 4, Gupta told officers Sarkar used to work in the Analyst Unit for the Timberwolves but was moved to another area after "butting heads" with his immediate superior.
Gupta also said Sarkar wasn't submitting code correctly, was missing meetings, and would not go to his one‐on‐one meetings with his boss.
Gupta said he told Sarkar he was being reassigned and then they went out for a beer. Gupta said he thought Sarkar had taken the news well, but later became "standoffish."
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