Air National Guardsman Agrees to Plead Guilty to Unlawfully Disclosing Classified National Defense Information

Teixeira has agreed to plead guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information relating to the national defense (National Defense Information).

Teixeira was arrested in April 2023 and charged by criminal complaint with retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials. He was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston in June 2023. He has remained detained in federal custody since his arrest.

According to the charging documents, Teixeira enlisted in the USANG in September 2019 and has held a Top-Secret security clearance since 2021. It is alleged that, beginning in or around January 2022, Teixeira unlawfully retained and transmitted National Defense Information classified as “TOP SECRET” or “SECRET” and/or Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), onto a social media platform to persons not authorized to receive such information.

Teixeira allegedly accessed classified documents containing National Defense Information from a classified workstation at the Otis USANG Base and transcribed and transmitted the information in written paragraphs to other users on the social media platform. Teixeira also allegedly posted images of classified documents to the social media platform, which bore standard classification markings – including “SECRET,” “TOP SECRET” and SCI designations – indicating that they contained highly classified U.S. government information.

The charges of unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information each carry a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI is investigating the case, with valuable assistance provided by Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nadine Pellegrini, Jared C. Dolan and Jason A. Casey for the District of Massachusetts and Trial Attorney Christina A. Clark of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.