A retired Army lieutenant colonel working in the Air Force pleaded guilty to conspiring to transmit classified information about the Russia-Ukraine war on a dating site.
David Slater, 64, entered his plea to a single count Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska, according to a Department of Justice press release. As part of the agreement, two other counts were dropped.
“I conspired to willfully communicate national defense information to an unauthorized person,” Slater wrote in a note while changing his plea, the Associated Press reported.
After retiring from the Army in 2020, Slater worked at Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base for about eight months, from around August 2021 to April 2022. There, he had top secret clearance and attended briefings designated as such on the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to court documents, Slater conspired to share information from Strategic Command briefings on a foreign dating website with someone purporting to be a woman in Ukraine. This individual described Slater as her “secret agent,” and her “secret informant love.”
Court documents didn’t reveal the name of the dating website or the person Slater communicated with.
The indictment states that the co-conspirator wrote to Slater at one point, “Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting.” Another message read: “Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very unpleasant ‘surprise’ for Putin! Will you tell me?” Slater replied by sharing information “regarding military targets and Russian military capabilities relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Slater was arrested in March 2024.
“Access to classified information comes with great responsibility,” U.S. Attorney Lesley Woods of Nebraska said in the press release. “David Slater failed in his duty to protect this information by willingly sharing National Defense Information with an unknown online personality despite having years of military experience that should have caused him to be suspicious of that person’s motives.”
Slater remains free until his October 8 sentencing, per the AP. The charge carries a 10-year maximum sentence, though prosecutors and Slater’s lawyer reportedly agreed on a term of between five years and ten months and seven years and three months.
Slater’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
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