WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — A former Congressional employee was arrested and charged for stealing around 240 government cell phones from the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Columbia announced.
The USAO said that on Friday, 43-year-old Christopher Southerland of Glen Burnie, Md. was arrested for stealing the phones, which were valued at over $150,000.
Prosecutors’ evidence said that between April 2020 and July 2023, he was working as a system administrator for the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In this position, he could order cell phones for the committee’s staff members.
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Southerland is accused of using his position to ship 240 new government cell phones to his home between Jan. 2023 and May 2023. Prosecutors said that during that time, there were only around 80 staff members on the committee…