Pentagon secrets leaker Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years in US prison
Jack Teixeira, 22, pleaded guilty to six criminal counts and said ‘I’m sorry for all of the harm’
Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years in prison for leaking online highly classified US military documents, including some related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Teixeira, 22, was sentenced by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston after pleading guilty in March to perpetrating what federal prosecutors have called “one of the most significant and consequential violations” of US anti-espionage law ever committed. He apologised in court for his actions.
“I’m sorry for all of the harm that I’ve brought and that I’ve caused,” Teixeira, dressed in an orange jail uniform, told Talwani during his sentencing hearing.
The judge said that despite extensive training on how to handle classified documents and warnings about the penalties for disclosing them, Teixeira “posted on the internet, on Discord, hundreds of documents over a period of a year”.
“The fact that others did not do more to stop you is truly unfortunate,” she told Teixeira.
Teixeira, who has remained in custody since his arrest in April 2023, pleaded guilty to six counts of wilful retention and transmission of classified information relating to national defence over a leak last year of a trove of classified records to a group of gamers on the Discord messaging app.
