On Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that a court in the District of Columbia sentenced three of its employees for conspiracy to steal proprietary software and a critical law enforcement database.
The statement highlights how former employees pilfered critical documents from the U.S. government for use in a commercial venture with possibly other hidden objectives.
Former DHS Employees Pleaded Guilty
The names and prison sentences were stated in the report for public reading. Charles K. Edwards, aged 63, of Sandy Springs, Maryland, was sentenced to one year and six months imprisonment. However, in January 2022, Edwards pleaded guilty to the tagged conspiracy and the theft of U.S. government critical data.
Secondly, Sonal Patel, aged 49, of Sterling, Virginia, was sentenced to two years of probation. However, the report shows Patel pleaded guilty to the committed actions of theft and conspiracy to pilfer government property.
Additionally, Murali Y. Venkata, aged 58, of Aldie, Virginia, was sentenced to four months imprisonment. In April 2022, a jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit theft of government property, wire fraud, and destruction of government critical records.
According to the court documents and sound evidence presented at the trial, Edwards was the former Acting Inspector General of the DHS Office of Inspector General(DHS-OIG). While Patel and Venkata were employed in DHS-OIG’s information technology department.
Furthermore, the three former DHS employees were all previously employed in the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General. The conspiracy was targeted at acquiring sensitive law enforcement and identifiable data of over 200,000 federal employees and other government data and software to create software for sale to government agencies.
As part of the whole scheme, the stolen software and databases were to be disclosed to software developers in India. However, with the knowledge of an investigation, Venkata deleted incriminating text messages and other communications to obstruct the investigations.
