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Ex-CIA Employee Pleads Not Guilty to Hacking Tool Leak

What to Know

  • Former CIA employee Joshua Adam Schulte has been jailed since his arrest last year on child porn charges
  • Now feds say they believe he also leaked over 8,000 CIA documents to WikiLeaks
  • Schulte was originally released on bail on the pornography charges, but bail was revoked after he was discovered using a computer

A former CIA employee has pleaded not guilty to charges he was behind a damaging leak about the agency's secret hacking abilities.

Joshua Adam Schulte entered the plea on Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan.

Court papers accuse Schulte of stealing the classified information at the CIA's Virginia headquarters in 2016. Investigators suspect he then gave it to WikiLeaks.

Authorities say the so-called "Vault 7" leak revealed the agency's abilities to hack Apple and Android cellphones.

Around the time the material was made public last year, the FBI raided Schulte's apartment and seized multiple computers. He was later arrested and initially held on child pornography charges.

A new indictment earlier this week accuses the 29-year-old Schulte of violating the Espionage Act.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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