Security News > 2021 > March > Judge Rejects Ex-CIA Worker's Try to Dismiss Hacking Charges
A former CIA employee cannot get espionage charges against him dismissed on the grounds that there weren't enough Hispanic or Black individuals on the grand jury that indicted him, a judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty issued his ruling in the case against Joshua Schulte, finding that there was nothing illegal about a suburban grand jury in White Plains returning the indictment during the coronavirus pandemic rather than a grand jury in Manhattan that normally would have done so.
Schulte faces an October trial on charges that he leaked a massive trove of CIA hacking tools to WikiLeaks.
Schulte's lawyers had argued that nine criminal charges alleging that Schulte leaked national defense information to WikiLeaks should be dismissed because the grand jury did not reflect a fair cross-section of the Black and Hispanic populations in the community.
A jury last year deadlocked on espionage charges, though it convicted Schulte of less serious charges of contempt of court and making false statements.
Lawyers for Maxwell, who has pleaded not guilty in a case presided over by a different judge, argued in pretrial motions earlier this year that the White Plains grand jury that returned an indictment against her after her July arrest did not include enough Hispanic and Black grand jurors.