Joshua Schulte: Ex-CIA Official Sentenced to 40 Years for Espionage and Child Pornography Charges

New York – Former CIA software engineer Joshua Adam Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison on espionage and child pornography charges. According to the statement released by the US Department of Justice, the judgment was delivered by US District Judge Jesse Furman. Schulte was convicted in July 2022 on four counts of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents, after giving classified materials to the whistleblowing agency WikiLeaks. Schult's conviction for carrying out the largest theft of classified information in the agency’s history was later upheld by a judge last August, The Guardian reported. 

“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history.  He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there.  When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars," US Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement published by the US Attorney's office of Southern District of New York. “And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification.  The outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors in this Office unmasked Schulte for the traitor and predator that he is and made sure that he will spend 40 years behind bars – right where he belongs,” Williams furthered. 

In March 2017, WikiLeaks began publishing material that focused on how the CIA surveilled foreign governments, alleged extremists and others by compromising their electronics and computer networks. The documents were touted as the biggest-ever leak of confidential documents from the CIA and also detailed the tools which were used by the American federal agency to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices. The document also alleged how the CIA cooperated with British intelligence to engineer a way to compromise smart televisions and turn them into surveillance devices. Hence, the publishing of the documents rocked both the American and the British administrations. 

‘This is vengeance’: Schulte

When given a chance to speak in the Manhattan court, the Ex-CIA official complained about the harsh conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He even went on to call his cell a “torture cage," CBS News reported. “This is not justice the government seeks, but vengeance," Schulte said adding that prosecutors had once offered him a plea deal that would have called for a 10-year prison sentence but would have meant that he would relinquish his right to appeal. The judge overseeing the case slammed Schulte for a “complete lack of remorse and acceptance of responsibility.” “Schulte was not driven by any sense of altruism but instead was motivated by anger, spite and perceived grievance against others at the agency who he believed had ignored his complaints about the work environment,” Judge Furman averred. 

Furman also pointed out that the Former CIA official continued with his crimes behind bars by trying to leak more classified materials and by creating a hidden file on his computer that also contained 2,400 images of child sexual abuse that he continued to view from jail.  “His actions cost the Agency hundreds of millions of dollars; degraded its ability to collect foreign intelligence against America’s adversaries; placed directly at risk CIA personnel, programs, and assets; and jeopardized U.S. national security by degrading the CIA’s ability to conduct its mission. In short, Mr. Schulte’s actions inflicted heavy costs on the United States,” he added. Back in 2018 when the leaks continued to stir storms, Schulte declared he was "waging an information war" against the government of the United States and even obtained cell phones in Jail. According to the prosecutors, Schulte used these cell phones to create encrypted email and social media accounts. He even went on to use these accounts to share more classified information from the CIA.