A man who worked as a system administrator for a congressional committee has been charged with stealing more than 200 new government cellphones worth over $150,000, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
The employee, Christopher Southerland, 43, of Glen Burnie, Md., used his job to acquire 240 new cellphones between January and May 2023 and then sell them to a pawnshop, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a news release.
Mr. Southerland was arrested on Friday in Washington and charged with one count of theft of government property in a federal indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court.
Mr. Southerland pleaded not guilty and was released. A lawyer listed for Mr. Southerland did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, called Mr. Southerland’s actions “a direct betrayal of the public trust.”
“That’s taxpayer money meant to serve Americans, not line someone’s pockets,” Ms. Pirro said. The government is seeking a monetary judgment in the case.
According to the news release, Mr. Southerland was a system administrator for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from April 2020 to July 2023. In that role, Mr. Southerland was authorized to order cellphones for committee staff members.
Federal prosecutors said that between January and May 2023, Mr. Southland “caused” 240 cellphones to be delivered to his Maryland home. There were only about 80 staff members on the committee at the time, the prosecutors said.
Mr. Southerland then sold more than 200 of the phones to a nearby pawnshop, where he told an employee to sell the phones “in parts” to evade the special security software that is installed for congressional use, federal prosecutors said.
Mr. Southerland’s scheme came to light after someone who had bought one of the phones on eBay called the number for the House of Representatives Technology Service Desk, which was displayed on the phone after it was turned on. House employees soon discovered that several phones Mr. Southerland had bought were missing, the news release said.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
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