A former U.S. State Department employee in San Francisco, is in hot water for allegedly accessing celebrity passport applications.
Richard G. Macias, who has worked for the passport agency for 24 years, has been charged with illegally viewing and sometimes printing out over 100 passport applications of celebrities, says the Chron.
Macias, 60, of El Cerrito, has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of exceeding authorized computer access. He confirmed in an interview today that he will be pleading guilty to the charges.
"I think they exaggerated some of it," Macias said of investigators.
When asked if he profited from the acts, he said, "Absolutely not. Nothing was ever sold or turned over to any third party, ever. If it was, I would have to be charged with a felony."
An official document states that Macias accessed the passport applications on 88 occasions, and printed out 129 copies of said applications, several of them numerous times. It also stated that there was no reason for Macias to be accessing these documents.
Investigators are unclear on why Macias accessed the documents, but it's possible it was just sheer curiosity.
