Government Contractor Accused of Espionage
A government contractor who worked at the Department of State and the Department of Justice (DOJ), is accused of espionage.
According to court documents, 50-year-old Abraham Teklu Lemma, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent, tried to pass sensitive information to a foreign government.
Lemma, a resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, had a top-secret security clearance and access to classified systems. He worked as an IT administrator for the Department of State and as a Management Analyst for DOJ.
Prosecutors allege that between December 19, 2022, and August 7, 2023, Lemma copied classified information from intelligence reports, deleted the classification markings, and removed the classified information, all without authorization. The information related to a specific country and/or geographic region.
According to court documents, Lemma used an encrypted application to transmit the classified national defense information to a foreign official associated with the specific country’s intelligence service.
Prosecutors say Lemma expressed an “interest and willingness to assist the foreign official in providing information.”
State Department Investigation
The State Department says the breach was discovered during a review of the department’s Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) network, systems, and applications, which was prompted after a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman was accused of leaking classified this spring.
The State Department says it will review the national security implications of the matter.
“Moving forward, the Department will continue to implement recommendations from the Internal Security Review to strengthen how we provide access to TS/SCI information, enhance continuous security monitoring, and protect sensitive information to minimize the risk of similar incidents in the future,” the State Department said in a press release.
Lemma is charged with gathering or delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government; conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government; and having unauthorized possession of national defense information and willfully retaining it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Washington Field Office, the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, and the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG) are all investigating.