Ex-State Dept. Employee Sentenced For Illegally Accessing Passport FIles

A former State Department employee was sentenced Friday to 12 months of probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service for illegally accessing hundreds of confidential passport application files, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced in a news release.

Lawrence C. Yontz, 48, of Arlington, Va., was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola in Washington. On Sept. 22, 2008, Yontz pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with unauthorized computer access.

According to court documents, from September 1987 through April 1996, Yontz served as a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department. He returned to the State Department as a contract employee in January 2004 to work as an intelligence analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In the regular course of his employment, Yontz had access to official State Department computer databases, including the Passport Information Electronic Records System (PIERS), which contains, among other data, all imaged passport applications dating back to 1994.

The imaged passport applications on PIERS contain, among other things, a photograph of the passport applicant as well as certain personal information including the applicant’s full name, date and place of birth, current address, telephone numbers, parent information, spouse’s name and emergency contact information. These confidential files are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974, and access to State Department employees is strictly limited to official government duties.

In pleading guilty, Yontz admitted that between February 2005 and March 2008, he logged onto the PIERS database and viewed the passport applications of nearly 200 celebrities, athletes, actors, politicians and their immediate families, musicians, game show contestants, members of the media, prominent business professionals, colleagues, associates, neighbors and individuals identified in the press. Yontz admitted that he had no official government reason to access and view these passport applications. Rather, he admitted his sole purpose in accessing and viewing these passport applications was idle curiosity.