18:12
Tieng Anh Vui
A former FBI agent has pleaded guilty to leaking information to a reporter about an al-Qaeda bomb plot and to unrelated child pornography charges.
The plea agreement calls for Donald Sachtleben to serve 12 years in prison.
The May 2012 disclosures jeopardised an international intelligence operation and put lives at risk, officials said.
Investigators identified him after seizing phone records of the Associated Press, which published an article on the Yemen-based al-Qaeda plot.
"This unauthorized and unjustifiable disclosure severely jeopardized national security and put lives at risk," Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a statement.
"To keep the country safe, the department must enforce the law against such critical and dangerous leaks, while respecting the important role of the press."
In May 2012, the Associated Press published an article describing a successful effort to disrupt a plot by Yemen-based al-Qaeda militants to bomb a US-bound airliner.
In court documents, Sachtleben of Indiana admitted giving a reporter information on a plot matching that description.
The Associated Press declined to comment on its relationship with Sachtleben, but said he had pleaded guilty "to revealing secret information for an Associated Press story".
Sachtleben, 55, worked for the FBI as a bomb technician from 1983 to 2008 and held top secret security clearance.
In 2008, he was rehired as a contractor, maintaining his security clearance and continuing to have access to classified defence information, according to court documents.
On 2 May 2012, he disclosed secret information to a reporter, according to a court document he signed.
Nine days later he was arrested on separate charges of trading images of child pornography online, having been identified during an investigation into another man accused of possession of child pornography.
An FBI search of Sachtleben's computer, seized in the child pornography investigation, revealed improperly stored secret documents, according to court records.
On Monday, Sachtleben pleaded guilty to two national security charges as well as two child pornography offenses, and was sentenced to 140 months in prison.
Đăng ký: Tieng Anh Vui
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