Treasury Dept. leaker sentenced to 6 months for ‘FinCEN’ document dump
A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison for leaking thousands of documents to a news reporter while she worked at a financial crimes division at the agency.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards pleaded guilty last year to leaking suspicious activity reports, known as SARs, during her time at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — but maintained she did so as a whistleblower to highlight alleged corruption in the government.
Manhattan federal court Judge Gregory Woods sided with prosecutors, who requested a maximum sentence of six months after Sours Edwards pleaded guilty.
Woods said at the sentencing hearing that the unauthorized leaking may have made our country less safe and may have put scrutiny on innocent people, as the reports reveal identities of people under suspicion who may have not committed a crime.
“The crime was a serious one,” Woods said, adding a sentence that included prison time was necessary to deter potential criminals.
In prepared remarks, Sours Edwards said she was raised to accept responsibility and act with integrity — and highlighted her Native American upbringing.
“I am an indigenous matriarch warrior whose spirit cannot be broken,” she said before ultimately apologizing for breaking the law.
Her defense attorney argued she be given probation and attempted to pin some of the blame on BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold, who she said “cultivated” Sours Edwards as a source and pressured her to leak documents to him.
Sours Edwards leaked Leopold some 50,000 documents, prosecutors said, which were the basis for a number of investigative stories published by the news website, including a series of stories dubbed the “FinCEN Files.”
The reports examined, in part, how drug cartels and other criminal organizations across the globe were allegedly given access to the global banking system to launder their illegally obtained cash.
Prosecutors argued the leak also revealed information about the terrorist organization Hezbollah and may have given accused money launders advance notice about investigations into their crimes.
In a statement, BuzzFeed spokesperson Matt Mittenthal said Sours Edwards was a “brave whistleblower” for leaking the documents.
“Because of Ms. Edwards’s bravery, BuzzFeed News, along with the 108 media organizations in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, were able to publish the FinCEN Files, which revealed financial corruption on a global scale,” Mittenthal said.
“BuzzFeed News supports the actions of whistleblowers and strongly condemns today’s sentence of Ms. Edwards,” he added.