Another day, another criminal Fed employee admits to being just that.
Recall that just yesterday we wrote about former NY Fed employee Jason Gross who somehow managed to avoid a prison sentence, but was slapped on the wrist with a $2,000 fine after he admitted to stealing confidential NY Fed data and handing it over to his former supervisor in his new role working for Goldman Sachs.
As it turns out he wasn’t the only “cockroach” – moments ago the DOJ Office in Illinois announced that another former senior analyst at the Chicago Fed, Jeffrey Cho, 35, has pled guilty to stealing “sensitive financial data” which he took with him days before resigning from the Fed and moving to a different employer. The conviction carries a maximum sentence of one year in federal prison. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for June 21, 2016, at which point we can only expect Cho will get the Jason Gross treatment and get away with merely a fine.
In the charge, the DOJ states that in his role as a Senior Supervision Analyst, Cho had access to sensitive, proprietary and valuable information belonging to the bank. The information included financial data and materials relating to the bank’s responsibility to monitor the health of certain financial institutions in the United States.
According to a written plea agreement, Cho was in discussions in May 2015 to take a new job outside of the bank. Less than a week before accepting the outside company’s employment offer, Cho printed a confidential Federal Reserve document from his work computer and took it home with him. After accepting the offer on May 12, 2015, Cho printed an additional 31 confidential Federal Reserve documents from his work computer and brought those home as well. On the same day he resigned from the bank on May 26, 2015, Cho printed 3 more proprietary Federal Reserve documents from his work computer and brought them home.
When confronted by FBI agents, Cho initially denied taking home the confidential documents, according to the plea agreement. However, after a second interview with FBI agents the following month, Cho turned over four of the documents. Cho told agents that he had shredded the remaining documents after his first interview with the FBI, according to the plea agreement. On June 6, 2015, Cho turned over a bag full of shredded documents to the FBI, the plea agreement states.
Cho further admitted in the plea agreement that he printed confidential Federal Reserve documents while he was interviewing for another position with a different company in March 2015. Those documents were also sensitive materials concerning the financial health of certain U.S. financial institutions.
The conviction prohibits Cho from directly or indirectly participating in the affairs of any United States financial institution for at least ten years.
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Which probably means in ten years and one day, Cho will be the latest employee of Goldman Sachs.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nRYW0I Tyler Durden