Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks

In this courtroom sketch, Joshua Schulte (centre) is seated at the defence table flanked by his attorneys during jury deliberations, March 4, 2020, in New York. Schulte was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Feb 1, 2024, after his convictions for what the government described as the biggest theft of classified information in CIA history and for possession of child sexual abuse images and videos. — Elizabeth Williams via AP

NEW YORK: A former CIA software engineer was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Feb 1 after his convictions for what the government described as the biggest theft of classified information in CIA history and for possession of child sexual abuse images and videos.

The bulk of the sentence imposed on Joshua Schulte, 35, in Manhattan federal court came for an embarrassing public release of a trove of CIA secrets by WikiLeaks in 2017. He has been jailed since 2018.