Two Indian-American US employees sentenced for government data stealing

Washington: Three former federal employees, including two Indian Americans, have been sentenced by a US court for their roles in a conspiracy to steal sensitive data from the US government.

The trio was sentenced for stealing the government’s proprietary software and sensitive law-enforcement databases for use in a commercial venture on Friday, the Department of Justice said.

Murali Y Venkata, 58, from Aldie, a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, has been sentenced to four months of prison, while Sonal Patel, 49, from Sterling a Virginia, suburb of Washington DC, has been sentenced to two years probation with one year of home incarceration, along with a fine of USD 40,000.

Charles Edwards, 63, of Sandy Spring in Maryland, who was the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG), has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release, the Department said in a release.

Patel was employed in DHS-OIG’s information technology department. Venkata was Acting Branch Chief of the Information Technology Division of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS-OIG).

According to court documents and evidence presented at the trial, Venkata, Edwards, and Patel were all previously employed at the US Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS OIG).

The trio conspired to steal proprietary US software and databases containing sensitive law-enforcement information and the personally identifying information (PII) of over 2,00,000 federal employees from DHS-OIG and USPS OIG.

Prosecutors allege that they planned to use the stolen software and databases 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 in an effort to obstruct the investigation, court documents said.