Ex-CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte who was convicted of biggest leak of classified information now faces trial on child porn charges where he allegedly had more than 10K images and videos

A former CIA software engineer convicted in 2017 of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks is now on trial in New York City for allegedly possessing more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography.

Joshua Schulte, 34, was found guilty in federal court in July 2022 of eight espionage charges and one obstruction charge over the so-called Vault 7 leak. Just two weeks ago, the charges were upheld by an appeals court.

Now he is on trial over allegations that he possessed and transported thousands of images of rape and child sexual abuse.

Federal prosecutors say Schulte took the disturbing files to New York after moving from Washington, D.C., to work at a financial services company.

He organized it based on the victims’ identities and characteristics and buried it under several layers of encryption.

Prosecutors said they found the material in Schulte’s Manhattan apartment, in an encrypted container under three layers of password protection, during the CIA’s leak investigation.

Schulte has previously claimed, without evidence, that the FBI framed him because of his work at the CIA. He is not allowed to put forward that argument during the trial, the court said Daily news from New York.

On August 29, a judge upheld his conviction on the espionage and hacking charges and dismissed one charge of lying to the FBI.

The leaked material from Schulte’s previous trials involved software tools the Central Intelligence Agency used to surveil people outside the US, including through the compromise of smartphones and internet-connected TVs.

The U.S. Department of Justice said he was motivated to leak the materials out of spite because he was unhappy with management’s treatment of him.

Prior to his arrest, Schulte had helped create the hacking tools as a programmer at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Schulte is on trial on charges that he possessed and transported thousands of images of rape and child sexual abuse

Federal prosecutors say Schulte took the disturbing files to New York after moving from Washington, D.C., to work at a financial services company.

When he was convicted of the leaks, prosecutors noted the extent of the release of his classified documents.

“Today, Schulte was convicted of one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history,” undermining U.S. efforts to combat “terrorist organizations and other malign influences” around the world, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. Manhattan. statement after Schulte was found guilty.

Attorney Sabrina Shroff, who advised Schulte during the trial, told his mother after the verdict that the outcome was a “kick to the gut, the brain and the heart.”

WikiLeaks began publishing the leaked material in March 2017.

Schulte, who resigned from the CIA in November 2016, was motivated to orchestrate the leak because he believed the agency disrespected him by ignoring his complaints about the work environment.

So he tried to “burn to the ground” the work he had helped the organization create, the Justice Department said.

Schulte countered that he was being blamed and scapegoated for his problems with management.

Schulte, who chose to defend himself at the 2022 New York trial, told jurors in his closing arguments that the CIA and FBI had made him a scapegoat for the shamed public who released the trove of secrets. Schulte is depicted in a courtroom sketch from March 2020

In his closing statements, Schulte claimed he was singled out even though “hundreds of people had access to (the information).”

“Hundreds of people could have stolen it,” he argued. “The government’s case is steeped in reasonable doubt.”

He added: “There’s just no motive here.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Denton encouraged jurors to consider evidence of an attempted cover-up, including a list of chores Schulte wrote that read “Delete suspicious emails.”

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that Schulte was convicted of “one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history.”

Williams said Schulte leaked some of the nation’s most valuable cyber intelligence-gathering tools used to combat terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the world to the public and to U.S. adversaries.

The prosecutor said Schulte knew the leak would render the CIA’s tools “essentially useless and would have a devastating effect on our intelligence community by providing crucial information to those who wish to do us harm.”

Prosecutors also said that while Schulte was behind bars awaiting trial, he continued his crimes by attempting to leak additional classified material while waging an “information war” against the government.

Schulte leaked to the public and U.S. adversaries some of the “most valuable cyber intelligence collection tools used to combat terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the world.”

As the jury left the courtroom for deliberations on Friday, the judge complimented Schulte on his closing argument.

‘Mr. Schulte, that was done impressively,” Furman said. “Depending on what happens here, you might have a future as a lawyer.”

During Schulte’s original 2020 trial, a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked over the most serious issues, including the illegal collection and transmission of national defense information.

Schulte told the judge last year that he wanted to act as his own attorney for the new trial.

He has not announced whether he will represent himself at his next trial, which alleges that Schulte moved to New York from Virginia after leaving the CIA with a computer containing images and videos of child pornography that he downloaded from the Internet beginning in 2009 . until March 2017.

Schulte was originally arrested in August 2017 and has been behind bars without bail since 2018.

In 2021, he complained in lawsuits that he was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment while awaiting two trials in solitary confinement in a vermin-infested cell of a prison where inmates are treated like “caged animals.”

The Justice Department announced the WikiLeaks-related charges in June 2018.