Lawyers for Jack Teixeira argue for reduced sentence in military data leak case
Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira deserves no more than 11 years in prison for sharing classified information online, his defense attorneys said Tuesday in a memo put forth to a judge ahead of Teixeira's sentencing next month.
The defense memo proposes that he never intended to harm the United States -- he only wanted to educate his friends about world events.
Teixeira, who is now 22, was arrested in April and pleaded guilty in March to six counts of accessing and printing classified documents directly related to national defense.
The leak included hundreds of documents, some allegedly related to the United States' support of efforts in Ukraine, which he posted on the gaming platform Discord.
Through his plea deal, Teixeira agreed to accept a prison sentence of up to 16 years, making it one of the longest-ever sentences in an unlawful retention case.
However, his lawyers sought to convince the judge that the minimum 11 would suffice in the memo that they put forth Monday.
“His conduct was clearly wrong and misguided, but his motives and decisions were naïve, not nefarious,” the attorneys, Brendan Kelley and Michael K. Bachrach, said.
The defense said Teixeira is autistic and “severely stunted by his disabilities.” His attorneys called his decision to share the nation’s defense secrets “terrible” and deserving of serious consequences.
“Jack has thoroughly accepted responsibility for the wrongfulness of his actions and stands ready to accept whatever punishment must now be imposed,” his lawyers said.
The defense memo said Teixeira sat for a nearly four-hour intelligence community debrief and detailed the full scope of his conduct as part of his plea deal.
He is also currently negotiating a disposition to his parallel, but related, military prosecution, the memo said.
In response, federal prosecutors in Boston asked for the maximum 16 years in prison on Monday evening, arguing Teixeira “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history.”
Teixeira's sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 12.
