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Kenneth W. Ford, Jr.
Former National Security Agency Analyst in Maryland
NSA Worker Convicted Of Document Removal Alleges Withheld Evidence
Federal authorities withheld crucial evidence as they convicted a former National Security Agency analyst of removing confidential documents from his office, according to the defendant's parents. Kenneth and Gloria Ford have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate their claims that that their son Kenneth W. Ford, Jr., left, was railroaded into prison by use of a confidential informant whose background was not disclosed at trial. Their son received a six-year term in 2006 after a jury convicted him on charges of improperly removing from his NSA office upon resignation two boxes that included classfied material.
Authorities issued a press release saying that his arrest and conviction thwarted a serious security breach. But the defendant's parents wrote Holder that their son did nothing wrong. They said he was set up by the confidential informant, whom he met through a dating service and whose close involvement with authorities, the parents said, was improperly hidden from jurors.
Investigative reports have alleged that the younger Ford, a former Secret Service agent at times on presidential protection duty, aroused resentment at the White House by signing his name to an NSA analysis early in the Iraq War that casting doubt on the weapons of mass destruction rationale for the allied attack.
In imposing sentence in 2006, U.S. District Judge Judge Peter Messitte ordered six years of imprisonment on the first count of unauthorized removal of classified information. Also, the judge ordered three years (to be served concurrently) for making a false statement on a government security clearance form for a classified job with Lockheed Martin filled out nine months after his arrest. Ford stated on the form that his arrest was wrongful, which authorities described as a false statement.
Case Index
Claims of Government Misconduct
Selected News Articles
Trial Judge
Defense & Filings
Allegations
The FBI provides this case summary:
Officials at NSA said they received an anonymous tip in January 2004 that a former employee—Kenneth Wayne Ford—had a box full of its secrets that he was trying to sell to foreign agents. Then the person providing the tip read these officials the contents of actual classified documents. The NSA immediately called us. To make matters more urgent, the person said Ford planned to take the documents—some extremely sensitive and related to national defense—to Dulles International Airport in Virginia the next day. Agents from Calverton, Maryland, office quickly placed the former NSA computer scientist and his home under surveillance.
“We set some land-speed records obtaining the legal authority from the judge to search Mr. Ford’s residence,“ said FBI Agent Dave Evans, who supervised the investigation. As it turned out, the tipster was wrong on one count: Ford wasn’t planning on making any trips out of the country and didn’t even make the drive to the airport. But agents obtained a court order authorizing the search at his home in Waldorf, Maryland, where the documents were reportedly stored. “We entered the house and there were piles of stuff everywhere,” Evans said. “Most of the very sensitive documents were in two boxes in the kitchen.”
Ford was arrested and charged with one count of unauthorized possession of national defense information. He was later charged with making a false statement when he applied for a job requiring a top secret clearance and said he’d never been arrested.
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