Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira is a flight risk who took calculated steps to thwart the investigation into his alleged leak of classified information, federal prosecutors argued in a new courtroom submitting Wednesday, as they get ready to inform a federal pass judgement on Teixeira “must remain detained.”
Teixeira, 21, is due in federal courtroom in Worcester, Massachusetts, Thursday for a detention hearing after being charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of nationwide protection information and willful retention of classified paperwork. Teixeira has but to go into a plea.
“In the first place, the Defendant poses a serious flight risk,” prosecutors stated within the Wednesday submitting. “He currently faces 25 years in prison — and potentially far more — and other serious consequences for his conduct; the evidence against him is substantial and mounting; the charged conduct would very obviously end his military career; and he accessed and may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States.”
In the federal government’s submitting, prosecutors claimed Teixeira took “a series of obstructive steps” supposed to forestall investigators from working out the scope of what he allegedly did.
“This includes instructions the Defendant gave to other online members of a social media platform (including to ‘delete all messages’ and ‘[i]f anyone comes looking, don’t tell them s***’), as well as the fact that following his arrest, authorities searched a dumpster at his residence and found a tablet, a laptop and an Xbox gaming console, all of which had been smashed,” the submitting stated.
An undated picture of Jack Teixeira, suspected of leaking classified paperwork.
Obtained via ABC News
Federal prosecutors expressed fear that it might be “all too easy” for Teixeira, if launched on bail, “to further disseminate classified information,” developing what they referred to as an “unacceptable risk” he would flee the rustic and “take refuge with a foreign adversary,” the file stated.
The govt additionally defined intimately the explanations they imagine Teixeira poses a threat to the general public if allowed to be launched from detention, pointing to the “virtual arsenal of weapons” he possessed at apartments he occupied which are owned via his parents.
It integrated “bolt-action rifles, rifles, AR- and AK-style weapons, and a bazooka,” prosecutors stated within the submitting.
Further, the federal government flagged that as not too long ago as July of ultimate yr, Teixeira allegedly used his govt pc to look the phrases “Ruby Ridge,” “Las Vegas shooting,” “Mandalay Bay shooting,” “Buffalo tops shooting” and “Uvalde,” consistent with the submitting.
Though investigators said that they may well be tied to Teixeira’s trust in conspiracy theories that the federal government knew of those mass shootings prematurely, “the combination of these search terms, the Defendant’s violent statements on social media, and the Defendant’s arsenal of weapons is troubling,” they wrote within the submitting Wednesday.
The submitting comes as two leaders of the unit the place the alleged leaker labored had been quickly suspended via the Air Force whilst its investigation continues.
The two senior leaders are the commander of the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron and the detachment commander overseeing administrative strengthen for the squadron. With the suspension, they have additionally quickly misplaced get entry to to classified programs and information.
Earlier this month, the federal Justice of the Peace pass judgement on overseeing Teixeira’s case granted his request to prolong the detention hearing that will have made up our minds if the suspect will have to stay in federal custody. Teixeira sought to put off the hearing so his lawyers can have extra time to deal with arguments for retaining him in federal custody, consistent with a courtroom submitting.
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