Jack Teixeira, a 22-year-old U.S. Air National Guardsman, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for leaking classified Pentagon documents.
Teixeira pleaded guilty to charges related to the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information that he shared on an online platform ‘Discord’.
The platform is mostly used by gamers but he uploaded the documents to impress his friends, court documents say.
The Most Significant Case in Recent History
The prosecutors argued that what Teixeira did, had never been done ever in the history of the Pentagon, not at least in the recent past.
The leaked materials contained sensitive maps, satellite images, and intelligence reports, including information on the Ukraine conflict that was not open to the public.
Initially, the documents were shared in a private Discord chatroom, but they soon circulated on public channels and pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts.
The defense sought an 11-year sentence but the court rejected it due to the gravity of the case.
