Press Release - October 20, 2007

National Drug Intelligence Center provides key assistance to U.S. Army-IRAQ in conviction of Lieutenant Colonel William Steele

Intelligence Analysts from the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), Johnstown, PA, provided critical assistance to the investigation and court-martial of U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel William H. Steele, Camp Liberty, IRAQ. At the request of the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division, NDIC provided Document Exploitation (Doc Ex) unit support and analysis of seized evidence during the course of the investigation of Lt. Colonel Steele. In support of the court-martial, an NDIC DocEx analyst testified at the proceeding which was held at Camp Liberty.

Lt. Colonel Steele was convicted of three charges relating to the unauthorized possession, storage, and marking of classified materials. He was also convicted of possession of pornographic videos, violating an order from his superior, and conduct unbecoming an officer for having an inappropriate relationship with a contracted interpreter. Today Lt. Colonel Steele was sentenced to two years in prison, total forfeiture of all pay and allowances, dismissal from the service, and to have a reprimand placed in his official file.

Lt. Colonel Steele had formerly served as the commander of Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention center where Saddam Hussein was detained in the days leading up to the former Iraqi leader's execution on December 30, 2006.

NDIC DocEx analysts are specially trained to analyze and exploit information from documents and electronic media. DocEx teams provide a focused and intensive examination of seized evidence, using computer support and proprietary software, known by the acronym RAID, to rapidly organize and examine large quantities of evidence. Lt. Colonel Kevin M. Walker, as the Chief of Military Justice for Multi-national Corps Iraq is the senior military prosecutor for Iraq and was the lead prosecutor in the case United States v. Steele. Lt. Colonel Walker is a mobilized reservist assigned to the 151st Legal Support Organization in Alexandria, VA. In his civilian career, he is the Chief Counsel at the National Drug Intelligence Center. Lt. Colonel Walker's knowledge of the document and computer exploitation expertise at NDIC led to the U.S. Army's request for support that followed the seizure of digital media by investigators in this case.

The "Operation Tarnished Steele" case was investigated by a joint task force consisting of investigators from the Army's Major Procurement Fraud Unit, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Army Counter Intelligence and the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The Defense Computer Forensic Laboratory conducted the initial evidence recovery and provided electronic media containing more than 110,000 classified documents and email messages in various electronic formats. Through the efforts of the document and computer exploitation teams, NDIC was able to identify nearly 12,000 classified documents that existed alone or as attachments to e-mail files. These documents were electronically analyzed for items of particular interest to prosecutors in the case. NDIC analysts also compiled and analyzed telephone records to identify any information that either supported, or refuted, the charges against Steele. On October 11, 2007, NDIC Document Exploitation analyst Rodger Miller traveled to Iraq to present testimony at the court-martial based on the results of the examination and analysis of the evidence prepared by NDIC. Mr. Miller was qualified by the court as an expert witness in document exploitation. Although called as a government witness, the defense also called Mr. Miller to testify regarding document exploitation conducted by NDIC analyzing phone records in the case. Mr. Miller also testified in the sentencing phase of the trial. He was the only witness called to testify in all three phases of the trial.

NDIC has conducted hundreds of document and computer exploitation missions for domestic and international law enforcement agencies since its inception in 1993, and shares its proprietary RAID software with other government agencies and the military services.

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