AT&T Outage: A Criminal Act

Sonora, CA — The AT&T phone and internet outage that impacted thousands of Mother Lode residents was not an act of nature, but a deliberate criminal act according to Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele.

Earlier today, AT&T Spokesperson Alexander Carey reported that Tuesday night’s outage was due to a fiber-optic line being cut by a fallen tree outside of Sonora.  Sheriff Mele says when deputies further investigated the damage site this afternoon they found that was not the case.

“There was no tree involved,” says Sheriff Mele.  “Why or how they [AT&T] came up with that I don’t know.  We thought that it was very important to set the record straight that it was a criminal act not an act of Mother Nature.”

There are no suspects at this time, but Sheriff Mele asks if you have any information regarding the crime to call the Sheriff’s department 209-533-5815.