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| Timothy DeFoggi |
01/05/2015
By Jim Kouri
One of the key players in the creation and implementation of cybersecurity protocols for President Barack Obama's "signature legislation," the Affordable Care Act of 2010, will be spending the next two-and-a-half decades in a federal prison cell after a conviction for trafficking in Internet child pornography. Timothy DeFoggi, who served as the acting director of cybersecurity at Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the disgraced Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, was told by a judge on Monday that he'll serve the next 25 years in federal prison for kiddie pornography dissemination. DeFoggi was convicted by a federal jury on Aug. 26, 2014, after only a four-day trial in Omaha, Nebraska.
According to Justice Department officials, the 56-year-old computer security expert communicated online with other offenders in an underground Internet forum. At trial, it was shown that he articulated his strong desire to rape and murder children. Being a cyberscience expert, DeFoggi knew how to use the Tor browser, an online service that is capable of eluding law enforcement from tracking his Internet activities while he worked at HHS as its head of cybersecurity in 2013. What surprise many was the fact, he remained listed on the HHS staff roster with top security clearance even after he was arrested.
DeFoggi exchanged graphic sexual images of children on the website, which was impervious to traditional search engines or Web browsers, according to the Department of Justice. The FBI special agents assigned to the case subsequently were successful in closing down the kiddie porn site in December 2012.
“Using the same technological expertise he employed as Acting Director of Cyber Security at HHS, DeFoggi attempted to sexually exploit children and traffic in child pornography through an anonymous computer network of child predators,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. “But dangerous criminals cannot be allowed to operate online with impunity. Today’s sentence shows that the Department of Justice will bring criminals and child predators to justice, even when they employ anonymous networks like Tor.”
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