Jack Teixeira, the 21-yr-previous member of the Massachusetts Air Countrywide Guard who has been charged with leaking classified paperwork, pleaded not responsible Wednesday to 6 federal counts.
Teixeira entered his plea in federal court docket at his arraignment prior to Magistrate Decide David H. Hennessy in Worcester, a town in central Massachusetts.
Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, was indicted last 7 days by a federal grand jury in Boston on six counts of willful retention and transmission of nationwide defense facts.
He is suspected of leaking categorised Defense Department paperwork on Discord, a social media platform principally used by on the web gamers, just after he allegedly received them even though serving as a Massachusetts Air Nationwide Guardsman.
The FBI arrested Teixeira at a home in North Dighton, extra than an hour from the foundation where by he worked.
The categorised Pentagon paperwork have been learned on the net in March, but he had been sharing them on the web because all-around January, according to prosecutors.
Teixeira was arrested by FBI brokers in April and has remained in federal custody given that mid-Might, immediately after a judge granted a movement for detention from prosecutors who argued that he poses a flight threat.
According to the indictment, Teixeira held a top-top secret safety clearance starting off around July 2021 and was properly trained in the definition of categorised info, classification stages and good handling of these elements.
“Teixeira understood that unauthorized removing of categorised products and transportation and storage of people materials in unauthorized places risked disclosure and transmission of these supplies, and for that reason could endanger the national security of the United States and the security of its citizens,” the indictment mentioned.
Teixeira accessed labeled documents, together with countrywide protection details from a classified workstation at Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, and transcribed text in the files, which he then released on the social media platform, the indictment reported.
He began sharing the documents — some labeled “Top rated Secret,” “Secret” or “Delicate Compartmented Information and facts” — on Discord “beginning in or all-around 2022 and continuing till his arrest in April,” the Justice Office said.
One of the documents he is accused of leaking incorporated conversations about a plot by a overseas adversary to target U.S. forces abroad, prosecutors stated. Yet another document included facts about providing gear to Ukraine and how it would be used.
They also revealed specifics about U.S. spying on Russia’s war initiatives in Ukraine and top secret assessments of Ukraine’s battle electrical power, as properly as intelligence-collecting on America’s allies, together with South Korea and Israel, NBC News has described.
Justice Office legal professionals have stated Teixeira was caught taking notes about categorised documents and received warnings from superiors about his managing of the delicate facts, still he was capable to retain his access to the nation’s strategies, NBC Information reported in May.
Armed forces data confirmed that Teixeira holds the rank of airman very first class and has been in uniform considering the fact that he entered the Air Nationwide Guard in September 2019. He experienced been centered at Otis Air National Guard Foundation on Cape Cod and was assigned as a cyber transportation devices journeyman.
If he is convicted on all six counts, he could face up to 60 a long time in jail and a wonderful of up to $1.5 million.
