Former Morgan Stanley adviser in data hack case pleads guilty

A fired Morgan Stanley financial adviser who downloaded client data to a home server, some of which ended up on a public website, pleaded guilty to accessing the bank’s computer network without permission.
Galen Marsh transferred confidential information on 730,000 customers to a private server in his New Jersey home from June 2011 to December 2014, according to prosecutors. Account information about 900 clients was found on an external website, Morgan Stanley said in January.
The data was “promptly” removed from the site, the bank said.
Mr. Marsh didn’t post the information online, share it with anyone or plan to sell it, Robert C. Gottlieb, his lawyer, said at the time.
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Mr. Marsh pleaded guilty Monday in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy in Manhattan. He faces as long as five years in prison when he’s sentenced Dec. 7. He is free on a $200,000 bond.
Mr. Marsh “acknowledged that he should not have obtained the account information,” Mr. Gottlieb said in January.
Mr. Marsh, who joined the bank in 2008 and worked in New York, said he cooperated with the New York-based bank.
In a statement Monday, Morgan Stanley said that Marsh’s guilty plea “makes clear that misuse of client account information will not be tolerated.”
The case is U.S. v. Marsh, 15-cr-00641, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).