Northeast Chapter

Owen Soba is the current President of the North East Chapter.

As a member of one of the largest cyber crimes investigation squad in the country with over 15 years of law enforcement experience. Owen Soba has been an avid computer user and programmer since 1984, he is a recipient of the HTCIA "Case of the Year Award" in 2004 for Operation “Innocent Eyes” and has worked on some of the largest cyber crime cases in New York City. 

In addition he has assisted in educational presentations in Cyber Crimes arena to thousands of law enforcement officers throughout the Northeast Region of the United States

Chapter President - Owen Soba

Coming from many areas of expertise, whether in Investigations, Forensics, Security, Public & Private sector, the elected board of the Northeast Chapter covers much of the expert knowledge base it’s members.

Michael McCartney is the 1st Vice President of the North East Chapter.  He has been in law enforcement since 1990 serving in at both the federal and state levels. He is currently a Senior Investigator for the New York State Attorney General’s Office, Criminal Division.  Michael is responsible for coordinating High Technology Crime investigations statewide.  He also supervises the AG’s statewide Computer Forensic and Investigative Team (CFIT) which has three forensic processing centers throughout the state.  Michael and his team were the recipient of the 2008 HTCIA International “Case of the Year” for their work on Operation “Bad News”, an undercover investigation into proliferation of child pornography over major US based Internet Service Providers.

First vice president - Michael mccartney

Robert J. O’Leary, CFCE; MPSC, is the President of Electronic Crime Prevention & Investigations, LLC a computer forensic examination firm.  Retired from the New Jersey State Police, High Technology Crimes & Investigations Support Unit in October 2002, he was one of two Detectives assigned to establish that Unit in 1995. In 1997, he received the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA) Law Enforcement Excellence Award. His experience includes conducting and supervising criminal investigations involving telecommunications fraud and computer crime.

In 1999 he was the lead Detective in the Melissa Macro Virus investigation. In 2000 he supervised the first New Jersey Statewide Computer Crimes Task Force. He has developed and taught computer crime and cell phone investigation training courses. In 2001, he supervised the NJSP computer forensic examination unit. In addition to the HTCIA, he is an IACIS member and Instructor, and a former member of the NW3C Board of Directors. He was an advisor to the United Nations, UNESCO, Innocence in Danger project, and he served on the New Jersey Disaster Preparedness and Planning Coordinating Group, Cyberterrorism Committee. 

Second vice president - ROBERT O’LEARY

Ken Citarella is Principal of Internal Corporate Security Systems LLC and is of counsel to the firm of Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz P.C. in White Plains, NY.

During a 27-year career with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, Ken served as Deputy Division Chief of the Investigations Division and Bureau Chief of the High Technology Crime and Economic Crime Bureaus.  Ken spent most of his career prosecuting white collar and computer crimes, and helped pioneer the investigation and prosecution of computer crimes, including Internet based child abuse, in New York State and nationally.  Ken has lectured widely on computer crime issues before law enforcement, professional, academic and public assemblies and participated in numerous organizations dedicated to the improving the ability of the law enforcement community to investigate and convict computer criminals.  Ken has been a member of the High Technology Crimes Investigation Association since the mid-1980s, and was the founding President of its Northeast Chapter in 1990.

Treasurer - KEN CITarella

Steven Branigan is Founder and CEO of CyanLine LLC, a high-technology security solution provider.

A former New Jersey police officer and also a veteran of Bell Labs, Mr. Branigan has more than 16 years of network security and computer forensics experience. He has been honored by the United Secrets Service and the New Jersey State Police for his work. Mr. Branigan testified before the 107th U.S. Congress on the state of cyber security. In 2007, Mr. Branigan was selected as an "All-Star" presenter for the The Institute of Internal Auditors national conference. A respected industry author, Mr. Branigan published “High-Tech Crimes Revealed” in 2005 alongside numerous other writings and presentations.

Mr. Branigan is the current Chapter Secretary for the High Technology Crime Investigation Association NorthEast Chapter, an active member in the Infragard program and an adjunct professor on graduate computing security topics at Monmouth University.

He earned both his B.A. and M.S. degrees in computer science from Rutgers College, and earned his MBA from Columbia University.

SecRETARY - Steven branigan