2 Indian American Former Federal Employees Sentenced for Conspiring to Steal U.S. Government Software and Databases
- Murali Y. Venkata, 58, of Aldie, Virginia, got four months in prison, while Sonal Patel, 49, of Sterling, Virginia, received two years of probation.
Three former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees, including two Indian Americans, were sentenced last week in the District of Columbia for a conspiracy to steal proprietary software and sensitive law-enforcement databases from the U.S. government for use in a commercial venture. Murali Y. Venkata, 58, of Aldie, Virginia, was sentenced to four months in prison, while Sonal Patel, 49, of Sterling, Virginia, was sentenced to two years of probation.
Venkata was convicted in April 2022 “of conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the United States, theft of government property, wire fraud, and destruction of records,” the Department of Justice said in a press release. Patel pleaded guilty in April 2019, to conspiracy to commit theft of government property.
Meanwhile, the third defendant, Charles K. Edwards, 63, of Sandy Spring, Maryland, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. He pleaded guilty in January 2022, “to conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the United States and theft of government property.”
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Patel and Venkata were employed in DHS-OIG’s information technology department. Edwards was the former Acting Inspector General of the DHS Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG). All three also worked in the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General.
Between 2014 and 2017, the trio conspired to steal proprietary U.S. software and databases containing sensitive law-enforcement information and the personally identifiable information of over 200,000 federal employees from DHS-OIG and USPS-OIG. They planned to use the stolen software and databases to create a commercial software product to be offered for sale to government agencies. As part of the scheme, the co-conspirators disclosed the stolen software and databases containing PII to software developers located in India. After Venkata learned of the investigation, he deleted incriminating text messages and other communications to obstruct the investigation, the DOJ said.