March 4 (UPI) — Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira on Monday changed his plea to guilty on charges of leaking top secret Pentagon documents and agreed to a prison sentence of up to 16 years.
According to a plea agreement filed by prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Boston, Teixeira, 22, pleaded guilty to six counts of retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials.
He has agreed to a sentence of between 132 months and 200 months for each count, as well as a fine of $50,000 and 36 months of supervised release, the deal states.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy indicated he intends to ask District Court Magistrate Judge David Hennessy that Teixeira be sentenced to the upper end of 16 years, citing aggravating factors such as the fact the leaks involved top secret information and because Teixeira “abused a position of trust.”
Another aggravating factor, prosecutors said, is that Teixeira “willfully obstructed or impeded” the investigation into the leaks.
Teixeira, who was 21 at the time of his arrest, originally pleaded not guilty last year to all six counts. Prosecutors said he was motivated by seeking to impress his friends with his access to top secret documents.
Authorities said once he had obtained the documents from his classified workstation at the Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Mass., he transcribed and transmitted the information in written paragraphs on the Discord social media platform.
The airman also was accused of posting images of classified documents bearing “top secret” classification markings, indicating they contained “highly classified United States government information.”
At least one of the top secret documents allegedly was found in digital form in a particular account associated with Teixeira, prosecutors said.
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