A former CIA employee has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after the biggest data leak in the agency’s history.

(CNN) — A former CIA employee was sentenced to 40 years in prison after the largest data leak in the agency’s history, the prosecutor’s office for the Southern District of New York announced this Thursday.

Joshua Schulte, accused of delivering reams of classified data to WikiLeaks in 2016, was indicted in 2022 on charges of illegally collecting and transmitting national defense information and obstructing criminal investigations and grand jury proceedings, among other charges. He was convicted in 2023 of receiving, possessing and transporting child pornography, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Schulte worked as a computer engineer at the CIA’s Cyber ​​Intelligence Center, creating cyber tools that could extract data from computers without detection. Schulte defended himself at trial. A previous trial in 2020 ended with a hung jury.

“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing one of the most brazen and heinous espionage crimes in American history,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “He caused untold damage to our national security in an attempt to retaliate against the CIA for responding to Schulte’s security breach while he was employed there.”

“When the FBI caught up with him, Schultz doubled down and tried to do more damage to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of releasing top intelligence from behind prison,” Williams added. “And during that time, Schulte collected thousands and thousands of videos and images of abused children for his personal gratification.”

“Today, Joshua Schulte was punished not only for his betrayal of our country, but for his significant possession of horrific child pornographic material,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Smith said in a statement. “The seriousness of his actions is clear, and the sentence imposed reflects the magnitude of the disruptive and harmful risk posed by his criminal conduct.”

Schulte’s problems at the CIA began in the summer of 2015, when he began feuding with management and co-workers and filed a restraining order against co-workers in state court, court records show. As a result of the dispute, Schulte and a colleague were transferred.

Investigators alleged the cyber tool CIA officials were building when they wanted to hire a contractor, prosecutors said.

A year later, investigators alleged that Schulte stole cyber tools and source code and transferred them to WikiLeaks, according to court records. He then tried to cover his tracks, erasing any and all traces of his access to computer systems, prosecutors said.

Schulte left the CIA in November 2016. But in March 2017, WikiLeaks published the first installment of its Vault 7 leaks, which stemmed from two programs Schulte had access to, court records show.

WikiLeaks issued a press release with the information, saying the data was provided anonymously by a source who wanted to raise political questions, particularly about whether the CIA had outgrown its hacking capabilities and exceeded its authority. .

Schulte, who allegedly lied to CIA and FBI investigators to cover his tracks, was arrested in August 2017 on child pornography charges. Months later he was indicted on charges related to the data breach.