Defector to Iran charged in U.S.
Former Air Force specialist accused of sharing classified data
WASHINGTON — A former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Justice Department also accused Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, of betraying former colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community by feeding details about their personal and professional lives to Iran.
Four hackers linked to the Iranian government, who are charged in the same indictment, used that information to target the intelligence workers online, prosecutors said.
Witt had been on the FBI’S radar for at least a year before she defected after she attended an Iranian conference and appeared in anti-american videos. Witt was warned about her activities, but she reassured agents that she would not provide sensitive information about her work if she returned to Iran. She was not arrested.
“Once a holder of a top secret security clearance, Monica Witt actively sought opportunities to undermine the United States and support the government of Iran, a country which poses a serious threat to our national security,” said FBI executive assistant director
Jay Tabb, the bureau’s top national security official.
Witt remains at large in Iran, as do the four hackers, who prosecutors say were acting on behalf of the government-linked Iranian Revolutionary Guard, prosecutors said.
The hackers used impostor Facebook personas to target intelligence officials and were even able at one point to join a private Facebook group composed primarily of retired government workers, according to the indictment.
Witt defected to Iran in 2013 after being invited to two all-expensepaid conferences in the country that the Justice Department says promoted anti-western propaganda and condemned American moral standards. She was a Defense Department contractor at the time.