Ex-Army officer pleads guilty to sharing classified Russia-Ukraine war info on dating site

CBS News

6 days ago

A retired Army officer who worked as a civilian for the Air Force has pleaded guilty to conspiring to transmit classified information about Russia's war with Ukraine on a foreign online dating platform.
David Slater, 64, who had top secret clearance at his job at the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, pleaded guilty to a single count before a federal magistrate judge in Omaha on Thursday. In exchange for his guilty plea, two other counts were dropped.
Slater "failed in his duty to protect this information by willingly sharing National Defense Information with an unknown online personality despite having years of military experience," U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods for the District of Nebraska said in a statement.
STRATCOM is the U.S. military command responsible for nuclear deterrence, command and control. While working there, Slater received training for the proper handling of sensitive government information, according to prosecutors.
Slater remains free pending his sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 8. Prosecutors and his lawyers agreed that he should serve between five years and 10 months and seven years and three months in prison, and the government will recommend a term at the low end of that range. The charge carries a statutory maximum of 10 years behind bars.
U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher will ultimately decide whether to accept the plea agreement and will determine Slater's sentence.
"I conspired to willfully communicate national defense information to an unauthorized person," Slater said in a handwritten note on his petition to change his plea.
Slater had access to some of the country's most closely held secrets, John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
"Access to classified information comes with great responsibility," said Woods, adding that Slater should have been suspicious of the unknown person's motives.
Slater and the unnamed individual discussed the war over email and an online messaging platform, according to court documents. He was regularly asked about his access to national defense information, prosecutors said.
"Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting," reads one March 2022 message to Slater. "Beloved Dave, do NATO and Biden have a secret plan to help us," the person asked in another message.
Slater retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 2020 and worked in a classified space at the base from around August 2021 until around April 2022. He attended briefings about the Russia-Ukraine war that were classified up to top secret, court documents say. He was arrested in March of 2024.
In his plea agreement, he acknowledged that he conspired to transmit classified information that he learned from those briefings via the foreign dating website's messaging platform to an unnamed coconspirator, who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine. The information, classified as secret, pertained to military targets and Russian military capabilities, according to the plea agreement.
"Defendant knew and had reason to believe that such information could be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of a foreign nation," the agreement states.
According to the original indictment, the coconspirator regularly asked Slater for classified information. She called him, "my secret informant love!" in one message. She closed another by saying, "You are my secret agent. With love." In another, she wrote, "Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very pleasant 'surprise' for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin! Will you tell me?"
"My sweet Dave, thanks for the valuable information, it's great that two officials from the USA are going to Kyiv," an April 14, 2022 message reads.
Court documents don't identify the coconspirator, or say whether she was working for Ukraine or Russia. They also don't identify the dating platform.
Amy Donato, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in Omaha, said Monday that she couldn't provide that information. Slater's attorney, Stuart Dornan, didn't immediately return a call seeking further details.
Before the charges against Slater were announced last year, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard admitted he had violated the Espionage Act when he posted highly classified government documents — some about the war in Ukraine — on a gaming platform.