Database admin to plead guilty in theft of 8.5M consumer records

A senior database administrator at a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) who was accused of stealing about 8.5 million customer records and selling them to data brokers is expected to plead guilty tomorrow to felony fraud charges in U.S. District Court in Tampa, according to court documents.

William G. Sullivan has also agreed to pay court-ordered restitution to victims, cooperate with ongoing investigations and forfeit the more than $105,000 he still has remaining from selling the stolen data. In exchange, according to a plea agreement also filed with the court, federal prosecutors are expected to recommend a reduction from the maximum five-year sentence that Sullivan could have gotten.

Sullivan worked as database administrator for Certegy Check Services Inc., a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Fidelity subsidiary that provides a check-authorization service to financial institutions and merchants across the globe. FIS itself is a provider of transaction processing and related services to the financial industry. It is separate from the better-known Fidelity Investments.