Joshua Schulte, who prosecutors said was responsible for agency’s largest data breach, also guilty of possessing child abuse images

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) software engineer who was convicted for carrying out the largest theft of classified information in the agency’s history and of charges related to child abuse imagery was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday.

The 40-year sentence by US district judge Jesse Furman was for “crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography”, federal prosecutors said in a statement. The judge did not impose a life sentence as sought by prosecutors.

Joshua Schulte was convicted in July 2022 on four counts each of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents, after giving classified materials to the whistleblowing agency WikiLeaks in the so-called Vault 7 leak. Last August, a judge mostly upheld the conviction.

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  • @thesmokingman
    16•8 months ago

    Typically conspiracy theories come with a kernel of truth, like he always maintained that the CSAM was planted. Only he didn’t. Because he was into CSAM. Don’t muddy the waters unless there’s reason to because there’s zero fucking reason to defend someone collecting that shit.

    • @[email protected]
      3•8 months ago

      Haven’t looked into this guy specifically but hitting someone with the “sexual predator” label is the number one thing that the CIA does to people they don’t like.

      • @thesmokingman
        3•8 months ago

        Don’t muddy the waters unless there’s reason to because there’s zero fucking reason to defend someone collecting that shit.