Programmer pleads guilty to stealing Federal Reserve software code

A former top programmer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to stealing software code belonging to the government.

Hamid Reza Tahmasebi, 54, admitted that as his employment as the bank’s lead programmer drew to a close in February 2014, he sent “sensitive information” belonging to the bank to his private email accounts and uploaded “large amounts” of sensitive information to a private online storage account.

The information included software code that he had developed for the bank, which works closely with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Tahmasebi agreed to pay restitution to the bank, which prosecutors estimated at up to $246,433. That, prosecutors said, would compensate the bank for reviewing the code and its security.

Prosecutors and Tahmasebi’s defense lawyers jointly agreed to recommend a sentence of five years of probation.

U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips told lawyers she would study the plea agreement and announce whether she would accept it after reviewing a pre-sentence report on Tahmasebi. She scheduled a sentencing hearing for July.

This story was originally published March 11, 2015 at 3:37 PM with the headline "Programmer pleads guilty to stealing Federal Reserve software code."