Contractor goes up the river for tampering with USCIS computer files

Former federal contractor employee Richard Abapo Quidilla, working as a records custodian at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, altered computer files so illegal aliens could get "legal" passports and was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, Aliya Sternstein writes in Nextgov.

According to federal district court papers reviewed by Nextgov, Quidilla, 39, of Pico Rivera, Calif., deleted the names, birth dates and other personal information on naturalized citizens in a secure database and substituted the corresponding data for illegal immigrants. Earlier, he pleaded guilty to charges of computer fraud, procurement of citizenship unlawfully and aggravated identity theft, Sternstein writes.