Ex-DHS employees conspired to steal proprietary software containing personal data of government workers: DOJ

Three former Department of Homeland Security employees were sentenced Friday for conspiring to steal proprietary software and personal data belonging to federal government workers, according to a Department of Justice press release.

Charles Edwards, 63, the former acting inspector general of the DHS Office of Inspector General, was sentenced to one year and six months in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2022 to “conspiracy to commit theft of government property and to defraud the United States and theft of government property.”

In 2019, Sonal Patel, 49, a former employee in the DHS-OIG’s information technology department, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of government property. Patel was recently sentenced to two years of probation.

Murali Venkata, 58, who worked in the same department as Patel, was sentenced to four months in prison. Venkata was convicted by a jury in 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 DOJ reported. Venkata was convicted of “delet[ing] incriminating text messages and other communications in an effort to obstruct the investigation.”

All three were previously employed at the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. According to court records, the men plotted to steal proprietary software and databases containing sensitive law enforcement information, which they planned to use to build a software product they would sell to government agencies through Edwards’ Maryland-based company, Delta Business Solutions.

The men were also accused of stealing personally identifiable information belonging to 200,000 federal government workers. The trio shared the stolen information with India-based software developers.

“After leaving DHS-OIG, Edwards founded Delta Business Solutions Inc., located in Maryland. From at least 2015 until 2017, he stole software from DHS-OIG, along with sensitive government databases containing personal identifying information of DHS and USPS employees, so that his company could develop a commercially-owned version of a case management system to be offered for sale to government agencies,” the DOJ explained.

Edwards’ attorney, Jonathan Jeffress with KaiserDillon, told Reuters in 2022 that his client was attempting to create a better system for the government. Jeffress said Edwards “understands that his possession of the system and the sensitive data within it as a private citizen was inappropriate” and “sincerely regrets his error in judgment.”

The DHS-OIG and the USPS-OIG investigated the case.

The DHS did not respond to a request for comment, the New York Post reported.

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