Mass. Air National Guard member accused of leaking classified info faces up to 200 months in prison

BOSTON — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents, will plead guilty Monday in federal court in Boston after announcing a plan to change his plea last week.

Teixeira, 22, of Dighton, faces six counts of wilful retention and transmission of national defense information -- each carrying a maximum 10-year sentence.

Under a change of plea deal filed in court Monday morning, Teixeira agreed to plead guilty to all six counts and Acting United States Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua S. Levy agreed not to charge the defendant with further violations of the Espionage Act.

As part of the agreement, documents showed that Teixeira would face 132 to 200 months in prison or 11 to 16.6 years, in addition to a $50,000 fine, and 36 months of supervised release.

Teixeira has been in jail since he was arrested last April. He’s accused of leaking highly classified military information about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other national security secrets on the social media platform Discord.

Teixeira worked as an IT specialist as part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base on the Cape. Prosecutors have said little about a motive, but some Discord members described Teixeira as someone who was trying to show off.

Boston 25 News Legal Analyst Peter Elikann said the plea deal shows the prosecution had plenty of evidence against him. He added that this case has already had a major effect on who gets access to highly classified documents.

Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira expected to plead guilty in federal case

“From the moment this was disclosed they really got together and really looked and reviewed all the safeguards that they could do so that something like this doesn’t happen again because it was a shock to everybody that it was so easy to put it out on social media and he’s doing this for a while and he’s not even getting caught at it and therefore there were some real serious gaps here in security,” said Elikann.

The leak did cause the Pentagon to tighten controls. The Air Force disciplined 15 personnel after it was found they failed to take action on Teixeira’s suspected behavior.

Teixeira is scheduled to be in court at 11 a.m.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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