A former Federal Election Commission paralegal specialist was caught with a massive stash of pornography on his government laptop, some of it “potentially unlawful,” according to the FEC inspector general.
The employee reportedly had 687 pornographic videos and 8,166 sexually explicit or suggestive images stored on his FEC-issued laptop. Additionally, an investigation from the IG found that the employee had searched for “adult tourism guides and maps” to locate prostitutes in Italy, Costa Rica, Mexico, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The inspector general’s office opened up an investigation into the employee in January 2022 after a source pointed them to a file in a shared FEC drive that allegedly contained a video of a naked person. The investigation found that the employee had uploaded pornographic videos onto a shared FEC drive. “The files consisted of five video clips that featured a nude female performing various sexually suggestive acts,” the FEC report says.
An investigation by an external law enforcement organization was also initiated after the IG flagged potentially unlawful content during its search of the hundreds of pornographic videos found on the employee’s laptop, potentially referencing child porn or other illegal content. The employee resigned from the agency in June 2022, about six months into the IG investigation. According to the IG’s report, the employee downloaded pornographic materials between 2018 and 2022.
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“OIG investigators identified evidence of sexually explicit images that were potentially unlawful. Accordingly, the OIG referred the matter to external law enforcement agencies for possible criminal charges. In addition, during the OIG investigation, the agency took prompt action to remove the subject’s access to FEC information systems,” the report said.
The law enforcement investigation was ultimately closed due to insufficient evidence.
The IG report added that the employee gave misleading statements when being interviewed by investigators and that he downloaded pornographic files during scheduled work hours. The content also included “inappropriate animated drawings.”
The report said that the employee had violated FEC policies by using government resources for unauthorized purposes and for violating “agency policies that prohibit the use of agency information resources to access sexually explicit material.”