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Former US DHS employees convicted for stealing government data
Patel and Venkata were employed in the IT Department of the DHS Office of Inspector General.
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Representative image / (Photo: iStock)
Two Indian Americans were among three former US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees sentenced for a conspiracy to steal proprietary software and sensitive law-enforcement databases for use in a commercial venture.
Sonal Patel (49) from Sterling, Virginia and Murali Y Venkata (58) of Aldie, Virginia conspired with Charles K. Edwards (63) of Sandy Springs, Maryland, to steal proprietary US software and databases containing sensitive law-enforcement information and the personally identifiable information (PII) of over 200,000 federal employees.
As per a US DoJ statement, the Patel was sentenced to two years of probation, Venkata was given four months in prison and Edwards was imprisoned for 1.6 years.
Patel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of government property in April 2019. Meanwhile, Venkata was convicted in April 2022 of conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the US, wire fraud, and destruction of records.
Patel and Venkata were employed in the Information Technology Department of the DHS Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG), and Edwards was the former Acting Inspector General of DHS-OIG. They previously worked at the US Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG).
As per the investigation, the trio stole data from DHS-OIG and USPS-OIG. It is alleged that they planned to use data to create a commercial software product to be offered for sale to Government agencies.
"As part of the scheme, the co-conspirators disclosed the stolen software and databases containing PII to software developers located in India. After Venkata learned of the investigation, he deleted incriminating text messages and other communications to obstruct the investigation," the DoJ said in a statement.
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