Joshua Schulte was sentenced to forty years in prison on Thursday. The former CIA programmer has been found guilty of espionage, hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI and possession of child pornography.
The conviction of 35-year-old Schulte followed previous convictions in 2020, 2022 and 2023, writes the US Department of Justice. “Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing the most brazen and heinous espionage crimes in American history,” said Attorney Damian Williams. Williams also points out that the former CIA employee tried to thwart the investigation after his arrest by making false statements about his actions.
Schulte worked for the CIA from 2012 to 2016. After quitting his job, he forwarded the so-called Vault 7 documents to WikiLeaks. These publications contain information on a variety of topics, such as Windows malware, router hacks, and other CIA tools.
WikiLeaks’ first Vault 7 publication was published in March 2017. Not long after, Schulte’s home was searched by the FBI, who found and seized several computers and servers. Tens of thousands of images of child pornography were allegedly found on one of the systems. The FBI also allegedly found several Google searches in which the suspect searched for child pornography. In August 2017, the former CIA programmer was indicted for this offense and a year later he was charged with leaking the Vault 7 files.