Nine Coralville workers accused of accessing Obama’s student loan records

UPDATE: The nine Iowa City-area Vangent employees accused of illegally accessing President Obama's student loan records were all fired last year, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Eileen Cassidy Rivera of the Arlington, Va.-based Vangent said the nine workers, not the company, were the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, and that Vangent cooperated fully with the investigation.

Vangent officials, she added, do not believe the violation of company security policies was politically motivated.

The nine face federal charges of exceeding authorized computer access. A federal grand jury returned the indictments, which were unsealed Wednesday.

The nine are to be arraigned at 2 p.m. May 24 in federal court in Davenport. The charge is punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Vangent is a call center, located at 2450 Oakdale Blvd. in Coralville. handling incoming calls for various agencies, including financial aid applications for the U.S. Department of Education. The forms contain confidential financial and family information. They do not ask the applicant's place of birth - a point that Obama “birthers” pursue - but only if the applicant is a citizen and has lived in the United States for five years.

Federal authorities have not said why the nine sought access to the president's student loan records or if the information was used in any way. Rivera also declined to comment on why they accessed the records.

“We do not know the intentions of the former employees,” Rivera said. “However, no evidence of misuse of the data by the former employees was found.”

She said Vangent has worked with the Department of Education for 30 years and that the Coralville office's contract with the agency remains active.

The student loan records were accessed between July 2007 and March 2009, when Obama was either a presidential candidate, the president-elect or the president, authorities said.

The White House declined to comment Thursday.

Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Department of Education, said officials can't comment or offer more details about ongoing investigations.

Those charged are Andrew J. Lage, 54, Patrick E. Roan, 51, Sandra Teague, 54, and Mercedes Costoyas, 53, all of Iowa City; Gary Grenell, 58, and Lisa Torney, 49, both of Coralville; Anna C. Rhodes, 32, of Iowa City; Julie L. Kline, 38, of West Branch; and John P. Phommivong, 29, of North Liberty.

Grenell and his wife are now missionaries in Tanzania, his neighbor, Linda Fisher, said on Thursday.

Voting records show that four of those indicted are registered as Democrats, two are registered as Republicans and three are not registered to vote in Johnson County. The two registered as Republicans are Torney and Grenell. Those registered as Democrats are Phommivong, Roan, Lage and Kline.

Teague on Wednesday evening said she never accessed Obama's student loan records. She said she had seven ID numbers for different Vangent databases - IDs that changed every 30 days - and that she wrote the numbers on a sticky note she kept in her desk drawer.

She said she was interviewed by Department of Education and Office of Inspector General agents who suggested a better place for her to keep her ID numbers. She thought the matter was resolved, but said she was fired “for cause” in 2008. She said she was not told what the cause was.

The company's other former employees either could not be reached or declined to comment on Thursday.