FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A former federal prosecutor is facing criminal charges for allegedly stealing sealed court records related to a criminal case against President Donald Trump.
Carmen Lineberger of Port St. Lucie was charged with theft of government property; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; and concealment, removal or mutilation of public records. The destruction, alteration or falsification charge alone carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Lineberger, 62, worked as the managing assistant U.S. Attorney at the Fort Pierce branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Between Trump's two terms in the White House, the Fort Pierce branch was hearing a case against the then-former president and two of his assistants connected to a trove of classified documents found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home on Palm Beach.
The charges against Trump were dismissed in 2024. The charges against his two co-defendants were also dismissed in 2025, after Trump returned to office.
The indictment against Lineberger, which references the Trump documents case only by its case number, says she sent internal Justice Department documents related to the case to her personal email account and disguised the names of the files. The files were marked "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY - INTERNAL DOJ USE ONLY."
According to the indictment, Lineberger created a document containing DOJ memos, saved the file as "Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf" and emailed it from her DOJ account to her personal account in September 2025. In December 2025, the indictment says Lineberger downloaded a case report, changed the file name to "Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf" and emailed it to herself.
WPTV has reached out to Lineberger's attorney for comment. We will update this story with their response.
