USA: Washington deports Game Developer Tishchenko to Moscow

W/S US District Attorney Carlos A. Esqueda with others outside courthouse
M/S Esqueda and others
SOT, Carlos A. Esqueda, US District Attorney: "Mr. Tishchenko plead guilty today to an Arms Control Act violation and a smuggling violation, of obtaining technical data of our local F-16 fighter jets. He does use them for his business as a flight simulator programmer. He has made apologies to the United States' government. We've assured that Mr. Tishchenko will be removed from the United States as of this afternoon and he will be going back to Moscow, Russia. He has no criminal history in United States or in Russia. He is under supervised release for the next three years and hopefully we won't have to deal with Mr. Tishchenko again and we will be investigating other crimes of this nature as well."
M/S United States Courthouse
W/S People entering and leaving courthouse building
M/S United States Courthouse
M/S US flag
W/S US District Court in Utah
SCRIPT
The District Court of Utah announced it would be deporting Russian video game developer Oleg Tishchenko to Moscow, after he was found guilty of obtaining classified date on F-16 fighter jets in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.
"Mr. Tishchenko plead guilty today to Arms Control Act violation and a smuggling violation," said the US District Attorney Carlos Esqueda who added the developer was only using the information as a flight simulator programmer.
"We've assured that Mr. Tishchenko will be removed from the United States as of this afternoon and he will be going back to Moscow," added the district attorney.
Tishchenko was sentenced to a year in prison with credit for time served while pending for trail.
The game developer had reportedly purchased the fighter jet manuals in an online auction in 2011 as he worked for the Moscow-based combat flight simulation company Eagle Dynamics. He later had the manuals shipped to Moscow reportedly unaware he was smuggling the information.