'Lucifer' with a screwdriver: Details emerge in vandalism at GCI headquarters

A man accused of breaking into GCI corporate headquarters in Anchorage Sunday and causing millions of dollars of damage to vital communications infrastructure called himself "Lucifer" and brandished a screwdriver at a frightened GCI employee, according to court documents filed Monday.

The vandalism led to statewide outages for customers of Alaska's largest telecommunications company, and Brodie Eguires-Lee, 24, faces charges including felony criminal mischief, burglary and assault in the incident.

Court filings revealed new details Monday about the bizarre attack on communications infrastructure that's vital to serving swaths of Alaska with phone and internet service.

But many questions remain.

Foremost among them: How did a man who GCI says had no connection to the company manage to break into a secured building on a Sunday, then locate and access sensitive, vital equipment?

Break-in 

Charges filed against Eguires-Lee detailed a morning gone off the rails in Anchorage, with statewide consequences.

On Sunday morning, a technician with GCI was called into the company's Midtown headquarters to investigate the cause of major service outages. When he got to Denali Towers, the Anchorage high-rise that's home to the Alaska telecommunications giant's headquarters, he headed for the "communications room," where "equipment critical to the company's ability to provide services to the public" is housed, state prosecutors wrote in a charging document.

Inside he found a disturbing scene: jumbled wreckage of computers and equipment, and a shirtless man holding what looked like a large screwdriver, the court filings said. 

When Eguires-Lee began to approach him, the technician fled the building, fearing he would be stabbed, the document said. He called 911.

Eguires-Lee told another GCI employee that he was "Lucifer" and was "here to fix the problem," according to the charging document.

The charges detail the way police think Eguires-Lee got into the building. But they don't say how he found his way into the all-important "communications room."

When police arrived, they found that an exterior door on the fourth floor of a parking garage had "large dents and (gouges)" around the lock. A piece of metal had been jammed into the keyhole, and a keypad was damaged.

In the communications room, officers saw "computer servers and equipment scattered" and "cables and hardware strewn around."

"It is estimated that the defendant caused millions of dollars worth of damage," the charging document said. The damage "caused outages to statewide data and emergency response networks, local hospitals and other business entities." 

Police officers confronted Eguires-Lee outside the building. He told them he was a GCI employee there to "fix the machines," the court filings said.

GCI has no record of Eguires-Lee ever having been an employee, said Megan Baldino, the company's senior director of external affairs. 

Sunday's break-in is the second time in less than two months that an act of vandalism has led to statewide outages for GCI customers.

On April 9, someone shot a bullet into a fiber optic cable in Midtown, interrupting service statewide, according to the Anchorage FBI office. Richard VanVeldhuisen, a spokesman with that office, said the agency was initially asked to help the Anchorage Police Department with the investigation.

"They asked for some technical assistance but ultimately didn't need it," he said.

But Anchorage police say they cannot find a record of anyone reporting the crime, or an investigation.

"I'm unable to locate any such report," wrote APD spokeswoman Renee Oistad in an email.

GCI would not comment on the April fiber optic cable damage, except to say the two incidents are not related.

But GCI is looking at its own security.

"We had security measures in place at the time of the incident," said Baldino. "The individual clearly used some force. As with any event, GCI is reviewing and we are going to take the appropriate measures as a result."

'An important room'

Eguires-Lee was arraigned in Anchorage Jail Court on Monday. He wore handcuffs and a yellow jail jumpsuit and spoke in a hoarse voice.

He told the judge that he wanted a lawyer. He said he'd earned "less than $10,000" primarily with "under-the-table jobs."  He had to be reminded by the judge not to speak about the facts of the case without a lawyer present.

Prosecutor Allison O'Leary asked for a bail of $25,000 and a third-party custodian. She noted that Eguires-Lee had no significant criminal history in Alaska but did have a felony drug possession charge in Arizona in 2016.

His victims included "everyone in Alaska whose cellphone service was interrupted," she said.

"Mr. Eguires-Lee picked an important room to cause damage in."