Afrigather March 4 (UPI) — Massachusetts Air Nationwide Guardsman Jack Teixeira on Monday modified his plea to responsible on costs of leaking high secret Pentagon paperwork and agreed to a jail sentence of as much as 16 years.
In accordance with a plea agreement filed by prosecutors in U.S. District Courtroom in Boston, Teixeira, 22, pleaded responsible to 6 counts of retention and transmission of nationwide protection data and unauthorized elimination and retention of categorized paperwork or supplies.
He has agreed to a sentence of between 132 months and 200 months for every depend, in addition to a high quality of $50,000 and 36 months of supervised launch, the deal states.
Performing U.S. Legal professional for the District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy indicated he intends to ask District Courtroom Justice of the Peace Choose David Hennessy that Teixeira be sentenced to the higher finish of 16 years, citing aggravating components corresponding to the actual fact the leaks concerned high secret data and since Teixeira “abused a place of belief.”
One other aggravating issue, prosecutors mentioned, is that Teixeira “willfully obstructed or impeded” the investigation into the leaks.
Teixeira, who was 21 on the time of his arrest, originally pleaded not guilty final 12 months to all six counts. Prosecutors mentioned he was motivated by searching for to impress his pals along with his entry to high secret paperwork.
Authorities mentioned as soon as he had obtained the paperwork from his categorized workstation on the Otis Air Nationwide Guard Base in Cape Cod, Mass., he transcribed and transmitted the knowledge in written paragraphs on the Discord social media platform.
The airman additionally was accused of posting pictures of categorized paperwork bearing “high secret” classification markings, indicating they contained “extremely categorized United States authorities data.”
At the very least one of many high secret paperwork allegedly was present in digital kind in a specific account related to Teixeira, prosecutors mentioned.
