Photo: Massachusetts Air National Guard
WORCESTER, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Ahead of a second detention hearing in Worcester federal court for North Dighton Airman Jack Teixeira, prosecutors have released new internal memos from the Air Force.
Teixeira is accused of leaking top secret documents from his job at Otis Air National Guard Base to an online chatroom. He was arrested at his North Dighton home in April.
New documents show Air Force superiors appear to have been keeping an eye on Teixeira for months before his arrest. Superiors repeatedly told the airman to stop rifling through classified intelligence systems. Teixeira was warned to stop at least twice. He was reported three times for going outside the bounds of his job as an IT specialist and accessing the intel.
One memo from September 2022 said Teixeira was spotted copying down a sheet of notes from the information and slipping them in his pocket. The report said that immediately earned him a talking-to from a Senior Master Sergeant in his unit. A month later, another memo said senior staff became suspicious that the airman wasn't heeding their warnings and offered to give him intelligence training — which Teixeira declined.
The Air Force temporarily stripped Teixeira's unit, the 102nd Intelligence Wing, of its intelligence mission after he was arrested.
The federal government wants to keep the airman behind bars until his trial. They plan to argue that Teixeira was well aware he was prohibited from sharing the classified information, and flagrantly did so anyway.
His defense is expected to push back on the government's claims that this case is similar to the Edward Snowden case. It will also present a list of espionage cases where the accused was allowed to walk free until their trial.
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