April 29 (UPI) — A Colorado man who briefly worked at the National Security Agency was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to trying to sell national security information to a Russian agent.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 32, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was a former member of the U.S. Army and was hired by the NSA as a civilian employee in June of 2022. He quit July 1 after his request for a nine-month leave of absence was rejected.
Before the end of July, Dalke began emailing with a covert FBI agent posing as a Russian spy. In his plea agreement, Dalke admitted to informing the agent that he had “exfiltrated some information that is of a very high level” and that he was in financial need.
“There is an opportunity to help balance scales of the world while also tending to my own needs,” he said in communication with the undercover agent, according to the plea agreement.
Between August and September of that year, he transmitted excerpts from three classified documents to the agent to prove his legitimacy, and in turn received about $16,500 in cryptocurrency. He then requested $85,000 for all the information he had stolen from the NSA and arranged the handoff with the purported Russian agent at Union Station in Downtown Denver on Sept. 28, 2023.
Prosecutors said that with the use of a laptop, Dalke transferred to the agent five files, four of which contained Top Secret national defense information with the fifth being a letter written in Russian that read: “I am very happy to finally provide this information to you.
“I look forward to our friendship and shared benefit. Please let me know if there are desired documents to find and I will try when I return to my main office.”
Moments after the transfer was complete, agents arrested Dalke.
The judge on Monday sentenced Dalke to 262 months in prison, which is the maximum sentence prosecutors sought, according to the plea agreement.
“This defendant, who had sworn an oath to defend our country, believed he was selling classified national security information to a Russian agent, when in fact, he was outing himself to the FBI,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“This sentence demonstrates that those who seek to betray our country will be held accountable for their crimes.”
