Ahmad Abuamo, a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen who helped Twitter oversee relations with journalists and celebrities in the Middle East and North Africa, was found guilty after a 2-1/2-week trial in San Francisco federal court.
The jury acquitted him on five of the 11 charges against which he was indicted.
Federal public defenders representing Abuamo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter ( TWTR ) declined to comment.
Prosecutors said Bader Al-Asaker, a close adviser to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, recruited Abuamo to use his inside knowledge to access Twitter accounts and mine personal information about Saudi dissidents.
Those accounts are said to include @mujtahidd, a pseudonym for a political agitator who gained millions of Twitter followers during the Arab Spring uprisings by accusing the Saudi royal family of corruption and other wrongdoing.
Prosecutors said Abuamo received at least $300,000 and a $20,000 luxury watch from Al-Asaker and stashed the money by depositing it into a relative’s account in Lebanon and transferring it to his own account in United States.
Defense attorneys argued that Abuamo’s work on Twitter was simply part of his job.
Abuamo was also convicted of wire fraud and honest services fraud, money laundering and a conspiracy charge.
“The government demonstrated, and the jury found, that Abuamo breached a sacred trust to keep private personal information from Twitter customers and sold private customer information to a foreign government,” U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds in San Francisco said in a statement.
Ali Alzabara, a former colleague of Abuamo, also accused of accessing Twitter accounts on behalf of Saudi Arabia, left the United States before being charged. Al-Asaqer, the Saudi crown prince and Twitter are not among the defendants.
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