Former US National Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira, 21, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston on Thursday on six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information.
Each charge could result in 10 years in prison, along with three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. Teixeira was arrested on April 13 of this year, when he was accused of leaking classified documents on a Discord channel he ran named “Thug Shaker Central.”
According to prosecutors, he first posted written summaries of documents and later posed images of documents marked “SECRET” “TOP SECRET” and “SCI” (Sensitive Compartmented Information).
“As laid out in the indictment, Jack Teixeira was entrusted by the United States government with access to classified national defense information — including information that reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if shared,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
“Teixeira is charged with sharing information with users on a social media platform he knew were not entitled to receive it. In doing so, he is alleged to have violated US law and endangered our national security,” Garland added.
The leak allegedly perpetrated by Teixeira, which included US military intelligence about the conflict in Ukraine, is considered one of the largest military intelligence leaks since the WikiLeaks release in 2010. Prosecutors allege he was warned multiple times by his superiors about his handling of classified documents.
Federal law requires that the government obtain an indictment of an individual within 30 days of their arrest. Thursday marked the 30-day deadline. On May 19, US Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy denied Teixeira bail, calling him a flight risk and “disloyal to the US.”
Teixeira’s family has expressed support for the young man, and his lawyers have pointed out that he has no previous criminal history.