Deputy US Marshal Misused Phone Tracker to Spy On ‘Personal Associates’ and Spouses

Deputy U.S. Marshal Adrian Pena, 48, of Del Rio, Texas, has been charged with misusing law enforcement resources to obtain cell phone location information of multiple people, including some with whom he had former relationships.

Pena used the Location Based Services (LBS) feature provided by Securus Technologies Inc. (Securus) for his alleged crimes.

“Although Pena was authorized to use the LBS platform only for official and authorized law enforcement purposes, Pena on numerous occasions used the LBS platform to obtain location data associated with the cellular telephones of his personal associates, including individuals with whom PENA was or had been in a personal relationship and their spouses,” according to the indictment.

To obtain the location data of individual cell phones, Pena allegedly uploaded fake documents on the LBS platform, including blank pages, award certificates, and letterhead templates.

None of the documents were official and provided no permission to Pena to obtain location data. In total, Pena is said to have obtained location data of nine individuals between September 2016 and October 2017.

After allegedly uploading false documents, Pena is accused of checking a box certifying the following: “By checking this box, I hereby certify the attached document is an official document giving permission to look up the location on this phone number requested.”

However, Pena did not attach any official document that granted him to access the location of the phone numbers, prosecutors said. Such location data access was not authorized by the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Marshals Service, or any other intelligence or law enforcement agency, the indictment states.

Pena also allegedly drafted an affidavit in the name of one of the individuals whose location data he accessed. He also is accused of forcing that person to sign the affidavit, which falsely stated that the individual gave Pena unlimited access to his personal phone information at all times.

For his alleged crimes, Pena has been charged with one count of falsification of a record, for which he faces up to 20 years in prison, two counts of false statements, which come with 5 years in prison per count, and 11 counts of obtaining confidential phone records, for which Pena faces 10 years in prison on each count.

Securus’ phone location data has attracted controversy in the past. While the company claims to provide phone services to prisons, it has been accused of collecting location information on American citizens and sharing it with law enforcement.

In 2018, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate Securus. A year later in 2019, the Antitrust Division of Justice Department blocked Securus from merging with a similar company that offered telecommunication support to inmates.