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March 4 (UPI) -- A civilian U.S. Air Force employee was charged Monday with sharing classified information on Russia's war against Ukraine over a foreign online dating website. David Franklin Slater, 63, of Nebraska, retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in late 2020 and was hired to work in a classified U.S. Strategic Command space in August of the following year.
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The indictment accuses him of transmitting national defense information over the Internet via a dating website to an unidentified co-conspirator who said they were a Ukrainian woman on their dating profile.
Prosecutors said Slater, in his position, attended USSTRATCOM briefings on Russia's war against Ukraine from February of 2022 until April of that year. During that time, he also "regularly communicated" with the co-conspirator over email and through an online messaging platform.
In communications, some of which were included in the charging document, the con-conspirator plied Slater with terms of endearment and questions to provide them with "sensitive, non-public, closely held and classified NDI," which he had access to.
"Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room??" the co-conspirator is quoted in the court document as having asked Slater in one message on March 11, 2022.
"Beloved Dave, do NATO and Biden have a secret plan to help us?" the co-conspirator is accused of asking on March 18.
"Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very unpleasant 'surprise' for Putin!" she is accused of asking Slater on April 19. "Will you tell me?"
Prosecutors said that Slater "indeed provided classified NDI" to his con-conspirator, including classified information on military targets in Russia's war against Ukraine and the Kremlin's military capabilities connected to the war.
"Mr. Slater ... knowingly transmitted classified national defense information to another person in blatant disregard for the security of his country and his oath to safeguard its secrets," Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division said in a statement.
"The Department of Justice will seek to hold accountable those who knowingly and willfully put their country at risk by disclosing classified information."
Slater has been charged with one count of conspiracy to disclose national defense information and two counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment, three years' supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 for each offense.
He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance in the District of Nebraska on Tuesday.
