Ex-cop Lee Reiber arrested for hiding Russian ownership of forensics firm from US Secret Service
Former Idaho cop Lee Reiber, 55, was arrested for allegedly concealing Russian control of Oxygen Forensics, which sold software to the Secret Service and other federal agencies.
Ex-cop charged with masking Russian control of firm that held Secret Service contracts
Lee Reiber, 55, a former Boise police officer and minor-league baseball catcher, was arrested in Idaho last Sunday on federal charges alleging he helped conceal the Russian ownership of Oxygen Forensics — a Virginia-based company that secured more than $2 million in sensitive U.S. government contracts, according to NY Post Metro.
Federal prosecutors accuse Reiber of falsely representing to government agencies that Oxygen had no foreign ownership or control and that its software was developed in the United States. In reality, the Justice Department says five Russian nationals owned and controlled the company through a Cyprus-based holding company, while the software was developed by a team in Russia.
Oleg Sergeyevich Davydov, 52, a Russian national alleged to be among the owners, was charged alongside Reiber and arrested at London's Heathrow Airport on the same day. U.S. authorities are seeking his extradition.
From LAPD family to Russian front man
Reiber, who followed his LAPD officer father into law enforcement, served as a Boise cop from 1995 to 2009. He was initially hired as Oxygen's chief operating officer in 2015 before being elevated to CEO, president, and chairman in March 2022 — weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine prompted the U.S. to impose expanded sanctions, according to the Justice Department.
Despite holding those titles, the Russian owners allegedly remained firmly in control behind the scenes, setting Reiber's compensation, overruling him on payments, and maintaining signatory authority over company bank accounts, according to the federal complaint.
Former Oxygen employee-turned-whistleblower Max Weissberg told the Post that Reiber had no "final say" on any of the company's business decisions, despite being listed as its CEO since 2022.
"In my opinion, there is no way the Russian government would allow an important company like Oxygen Forensics to be controlled by an American without direct oversight," Weissberg said. "Lee is clearly a figurehead, which is what I eye-witnessed as well."
The "trust factor"
Weissberg said the Russians hired Reiber because of his clean-cut, all-American profile. The New York Times had profiled Reiber in 2006 for his work using cellphone data to help investigate crimes. Reiber also frequently cited his history as a minor-league baseball player — the Cincinnati Reds drafted him as a catcher in the 55th round of the 1989 MLB June Amateur Draft. He played one year in rookie-league baseball and another in the Frontier League before moving into law enforcement.
"But as a handsome, former cop far from the big city, he had the trust factor," Weissberg said.
Weissberg described Reiber as "not very intellectual" and said he largely kept to himself. He noted that Reiber was an unusual choice for the role, given that he had no management experience and was based in Idaho rather than near the company's Alexandria, Virginia headquarters. Reiber's daughter, Courtney, also worked at Oxygen, according to prosecutors, who say he was paid $250,000 for his role as CEO.
Secret Service software and a concealed contract
The U.S. Secret Service confirmed it had previously used Oxygen Forensics software but "immediately discontinued" use in February after identifying security risks. The agency's National Computer Forensics Institute had awarded Oxygen a five-year contract in September 2024, despite Reiber's own acknowledgment of the risk in an email to Davydov and two other Russian owners. In that message, he wrote that public reporting on the company's ownership connection "could destroy this entire opportunity" and that the "current existence of this company hangs in the balance."
Other Russians associated with the company included Oleg Fedorov and Galina Rabotenko, according to Weissberg, who provided a photograph showing the group at an Alexandria bowling alley. A 2017 Forbes report identified Fedorov as Oxygen's CEO at the time. Fedorov denied connections to Russian intelligence, telling Forbes: "With the history of KGB in Russia, it's complicated, I want to stay as far as I can from them."
"Europeans" and a telling dinner conversation
Weissberg said senior figures at the company referred to the Russian owners only as the "Europeans" in an effort to obscure their nationality — a detail he only learned from a former head of sales.
The whistleblower later tested Reiber directly, asking him at a staff dinner whether he would ever visit Russia. Reiber paused and replied to the effect that he could not — that he was "one of the persons they would arrest." The response, Weissberg said, appeared to almost give Reiber's wife a heart attack.
Weissberg — who directed the Russian action film "Karaganda: Red Mafia," submitted to the 2024 Moscow Film Festival — subsequently left the company and went to authorities. Federal prosecutors allege Reiber and the Russian owners understood that public disclosure of the company's true ownership threatened its lucrative U.S. government business, and took deliberate steps to prevent that from happening.
Source: NY Post Metro