Security News > 2020 > March > Minor Convictions for Ex-CIA Coder in Hacking Tools Case
A former CIA software engineer accused of stealing a massive trove of the agency's hacking tools and handing it over to WikiLeaks was convicted of only minor charges Monday, after a jury deadlocked on the more serious espionage charges against him.
Joshua Schulte, who worked as a coder at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was convicted by a jury of contempt of court and making false statements after a four-week trial in Manhattan federal court that offered an unusual window into the CIA's digital sleuthing and the team that designs computer code to spy on foreign adversaries.
One juror said as she left the courthouse that the jury was always split down the middle on the most serious counts, although the jury was composed of only 11 people after one juror was dismissed last week when she told the panel she had come across news about the Schulte case before the trial.
Prosecutors portrayed Schulte as a disgruntled software engineer who exploited a little-known back door in a CIA network to copy the hacking arsenal without raising suspicion, in what was said to be the largest leak in CIA history involving classified information.
The defense said the prosecution failed to present a clear case or show how they could be sure Schulte was the culprit.