Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former software programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City pleaded guilty in federal court today to stealing software code.
Hamid Reza Tahmasebi, 54, of Leawood, Kan., waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips to a federal information that charges him with theft of government property.
Tahmasebi worked as a lead programmer for the Federal Reserve from Oct. 16, 2012, to Feb. 7, 2014. Tahmasebi admitted that, during his last week of employment, he e-mailed sensitive information to his personal e-mail accounts. Tahmasebi also admitted that he uploaded large amounts of sensitive information to his private Google Drive on-line storage account.
Tahmasebi admitted that he uploaded software code he was working on for the Federal Reserve to his Google Drive account. This software code was developed by the Federal Reserve as part of its role as the fiscal agent for the U.S. Treasury Department. The code taken by Tahmasebi was proprietary and owned by the Treasury Department.
The Federal Reserve, following Tahmasebi’s theft, launched an incident response and investigation along with an extensive code review to ensure its security. Tahmasebi acknowledged in today’s plea agreement that he owes restitution to the Federal Reserve to compensate for the cost of those actions, which the government believes totaled $246,433.
Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, Tahmasebi must pay restitution to the Federal Reserve Bank and a sentence of five years of probation is jointly recommended. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 2015.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew P. Wolesky. It was investigated by the FBI.
SOURCE: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri