A United States federal district court judge sentenced a Massachusetts Air National Guard member to 15 years in prison Tuesday after he was convicted of having leaked top-secret U.S. military documents detailing government intel on the war in Ukraine, terrorist group plots, and espionage efforts against America and its allies.
Jack Teixeira, 22, had pleaded guilty in March before a federal district court, initially risking a 17-year sentence on accounts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information that the government had classified as top secret.
He served as an information technology specialist at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod in Massachusetts, a position that granted him access to top-secret U.S. military intelligence, the Washington Post reported.
While on duty, Teixeira collected screenshots of various documents marked TOP SECRET and shared them in Discord, an online chat platform popular among gamers.
In recommending a sentence at the higher end of the range, federal prosecutors had emphasized the danger his leaks posed to American personnel overseas, and how damaging his actions could be to Washington’s relationships with several foreign powers, the Washington Post reported.
Texiera pleaded guilty in March, and Judge Indira Talwani found him guilty on all six federal charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Dolan said on Tuesday that Teixeira’s lengthy sentences are a “cautionary tale for the men and women of the United States military and [security] clearance holders in the government.”
“The sentence imposed must adequately tell those individuals they should not even think about doing what he did,” he added.