Former Airman Sentenced to 15 Years for Leaking Military Secrets

Jack Teixeira, a former member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sharing classified information online. The sentence was handed down by Judge Indira Talwani in the U. S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Tuesday. Teixeira pleaded guilty back in March to six counts of leaking national defense information under the Espionage Act. He was arrested by the FBI in North Dighton, Massachusetts, in April 2023 and has been in federal custody since mid-May. Teixeira started leaking documents on Discord, a social media platform popular among online gamers, as early as 2022. These documents included sensitive information about U. S. military aid to Ukraine and potential threats from foreign adversaries. Teixeira's actions were particularly concerning because he held a top-secret security clearance since 2021 and had been trained in handling classified information. The leaked documents were discovered online in March 2023, but Teixeira had been sharing them since January of that year. His position as a cyber transport systems journeyman at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod gave him access to these sensitive materials.

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