The Justice Department has charged the chief executive officer of a Virginia-based software company and a Russian businessman with lying to the U.S. government for years about who controlled the company, according to a statement Wednesday.
The lawsuit came after the oxygen forensics led him to sue after a former employee publicly made similar claims.
Lee Leiber, 55, the CEO of Oxygen Forensics, was arrested Sunday in Boise, Idaho, where he lives, and released on bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
His co-defendant, Moscow resident Oleg Davydov, 52, was arrested the same day at London’s Heathrow Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Istanbul. U.S. authorities said they expect to seek his extradition.
Both men are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Oxygen Forensics sells digital forensics software used by law enforcement and government agencies to extract and analyze data from mobile phones and computers. Its customers reportedly include the U.S. Secret Intelligence Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Department of the Army, which is now the official name of the Department of Defense.
According to the criminal complaint, for several years the company told these agencies that it was independently owned and operated in the United States, a claim that prosecutors say is false. Davidov and four other Russians secretly owned and controlled Oxygen Forensics through a holding company in Cyprus, and the software was written by a Russian team directed by Davidov, the documents said.
Mr. Leiber became CEO in March 2022, just before the Russian owner’s name was removed from the company’s public filings as the U.S. government expanded sanctions against Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian owners allegedly held control behind the scenes, setting Mr. Leiber’s salary and controlling the company’s bank accounts. According to the complaint, Leiber signed government documents in December 2022 and October 2023 that falsely stated the company was independent and had no outside owners.
This certification enabled Oxygen to secure a five-year, $12 million contract with the Secret Service Training Corps in 2024.
The complaint says that when a reporter asked questions about the company’s ties to Russia in late 2023, Leiber warned the Russian partner that reporting “could ruin this entire opportunity.” Prosecutors said Leiber denied Russian ownership or involvement in the software development in a recorded call with an undercover agent posing as a Homeland Security official in March.
Investigators last week seized Oxygen’s corporate bank accounts and approximately 57 web domains under a warrant issued on September 19th.
The government’s claims closely track claims made by former Oxygen employee Max Weisberg in a YouTube video in February, months before his arrest.
Weisberg said the company was “secretly controlled” by a Russian company with “close ties to the Kremlin,” that “100% of its programmers were in Russia,” and that Leiber was “paid to hide the truth.” Oxygen Forensics denies these claims and filed a defamation suit against Weisberg in federal court in Virginia in August, alleging the video was part of a retaliatory campaign.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security is investigating the oxygen forensic case with support from the Department of the Army, Ciarán McEvoy, a spokesman for the attorney’s office, said in a statement, noting that all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
