Joshua Schulte, a computer engineer who worked for the United States intelligence agency (CIA), was sentenced to 40 years in prison for leaking secret documents to Wikileaks and possessing child pornography, among other crimes, according to court documents.
Schulte, 35, pleaded guilty in 2022 to charges related to the leak of confidential CIA documents, in the case known as Vault 7 and considered the largest theft of information suffered by the American intelligence agency, which defined it as a “Pearl Harbor digital”.
The name Vault 7 was given by the organization led by Australian journalist Julian Assange, who is imprisoned in the United Kingdom, awaiting a decision on a US extradition request, for having exposed thousands of secret documents from several countries.
Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison by District Judge Jesse M. Furman, who in the sentence handed down this Thursday (1st) stated that the damage caused by the convict was enormous.
The computer engineer was charged with espionage, computer hacking and lying to federal agents about providing confidential material to Wikileaks, as well as contempt, false testimony and possession of child pornographic material.
The Vault 7 case revealed CIA activities outside the US through spying on smartphones and using television sets as recorders.
According to Judge Furman, Schulte continued to commit crimes in prison, as he attempted to leak more confidential documents and hide images of child sexual abuse in a hidden file on his computer.
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