Alleged Access of Child Pornography on U.S. Government Computer by a BLM Employee

The OIG investigated an allegation that a former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee accessed child pornography with a U.S. Government computer. We found no evidence that the employee accessed child pornography. We evaluated the employee’s network traffic, which showed their computer accessed sites hosting suspected child pornography; however, we were not able to determine if the employee accessed the areas of the websites that hosted the suspected child pornography. The employee took certain actions with respect to the hard drive, so we were unable to recover any images or other evidence from the computer. The employee admitted to viewing adult pornography on their Government computer while on duty but denied viewing child pornography. The employee resigned during our investigation after receiving a notice of proposed removal. The U.S. Attorney declined prosecution of this matter.