Jack Teixeira, the 22-year-old charged with leaking classified US military documents to fellow gamers on a social media platform, agreed on Monday to accept a prison sentence of 16 years.
Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts air national guard, agreed to plead guilty to all six counts charging him with willful retention and transmission of national defense information, ABC News reported, citing a signed court filing.
As part of his plea agreement Teixeira must sit for a debrief with the US Department of Defense and Department of Justice, and return any sensitive materials that may still be in his possession.
He has remained in custody since April 2023 when he was arrested at his mother’s house in North Dighton, Massachusetts, after he leaked classified records to a group of gamers on the Discord messaging app. At the time he was working as a cyber defense operations journeyman with a rank of airman 1st class at Otis air national guard base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Teixeira began accessing classified records starting in January 2022, and continued even after his superiors reprimanded him for his handling of classified records in September and October 2022.
Records leaked by Teixeira included highly classified military documents on Ukraine’s air defenses, South Korea’s ammunition concerns and Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, as well as Chinese interests in Nicaragua and a Russian Arctic struggle.
He allegedly leaked the records to impress gamers in a Discord messenger chat group.
The leak is considered to be the most serious breach of US national security since the 2010 WikiLeaks publication of more than 700,000 classified documents. Following Teixeira’s arrest, his unit’s commanding officer, Sean Riley, was removed and 14 other officers and enlisted personnel with the air national guard were reprimanded.
