DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A second Iowa woman has pleaded guilty in a leak of documents related to a federal drug trafficking investigation that outed the identities of two confidential informants on Facebook.
Rachel Manna, 33, of West Des Moines, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of computer fraud under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. She is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
Manna admitted she asked acquaintance Danielle Taff, a contract paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Des Moines, to unlawfully use her computer access to obtain files related to a drug investigation involving her child’s father.
In 2018, Taff took dozens of photos of confidential investigation reports related to a meth trafficking case that led to charges against 10 suspects in Iowa and Arizona. They included interview summaries of two people who were confidential informants in the case.
Taff met with Manna and allowed her to take photos of those images. Manna shared the information with nine others who had been implicated by the informants. Eventually, images of the reports were posted on a Facebook group dedicated to outing “snitches” in Des Moines.
Both informants were awaiting sentencing, which was pushed back a year while federal investigators probed the leak. Taff, of Ankeny, pleaded guilty in November and is awaiting a March sentencing date.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.