Homeland Security IG Workers Indicted for Theft of Government Data

   WASHINGTON -- Two former Homeland Security Department officials who were supposed to be the agency’s watchdogs of neglect and corruption will be headed to court hearings soon to face charges of stealing government information.

   The Justice Department indicted them last week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on 16 criminal counts.

   Charles K. Edwards, 59, of Sandy Spring, Md., and Murali Yamazula Venkata, 54, of Aldie, Va., are accused of taking software and data on 150,000 internal investigations and personal information of about 250,000 government employees.

   Edwards was a former acting inspector general for the Homeland Security Department and Venkata was one of his subordinates. 

   Charges against them include conspiracy to commit theft of government property, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

   They were using the information to help Edwards’ company, Delta Business Solutions, sell a repackaged version of it to the Agriculture Department, according to the Justice Department. The database was valued at $3.1 million.

   Part of the evidence against Edwards and Venkata appears to have come from a former Homeland Security Department technology manager who pleaded guilty last April to conspiring to steal the database.

   The federal judge who presided over the case described the data as “critical, confidential information” during a plea hearing for Sonal Patel, 44, of Sterling, Va. She faces up to five years in prison.

   She also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, which included telling them how she copied source code onto a DVD before giving it to co-conspirators.

   The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is participating in the prosecution.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.