Joshua Schulte

Joshua Schulte was a former hacker employed by the CIA who leaked two billion pages of secret CIA data, known as Vault 7, to WikiLeaks. Vault 7 programs were CIA techniques used to compromise Wifi networks, hack into Skype, defeat anti-virus software, hack Apple and Android smartphones in overseas spying operations, turn internet-connected televisions into listening devices, and commandeer the guidance systems in cars. After raiding his home police claimed they found child pornography on Schulte's computer and charged him with that as an additional offense on top of the hacking charges. Schulte was convicted of the Espionage and Child Pornography crimes in 2024 and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The Second Circuit’s nonprecedential May 3, 2022 summary order affirmed denial of a renewed bail application. It confirms an initial September 2017 bail release and actual remand to the U.S. Marshals on December 14, 2017, and describes restrictive confinement since October 2018. The order distinguished the 2020 false-statements and contempt verdicts from espionage and obstruction counts on which a mistrial had been declared, with a retrial then scheduled for June 2022. It upheld continued detention based on the lower court’s findings concerning dangerousness, complexity and responsibility for delay. Its approximately fifty-two-to-fifty-four-month discussion was an interim observation and projection, not a completed term. Later convictions and sentence remain preserved. Source: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/wikileaks-schulte-ca2.pdf#page=3