U.S.: GUARDSMAN IN LEAK CASE WANTED TO KILL PEOPLE
Decision postponed on whether to keep him jailed until trial
The Massachusetts Air National guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents kept an arsenal of guns and said on social media that he would like to kill a “ton of people,” prosecutors said in arguing Thursday that 21year-old Jack Teixeira should remain in jail for his trial.
But the judge at Teixeira’s detention hearing put off an immediate decision on whether he should be kept in custody until his trial or released to home confinement or under other conditions. Teixeira was led away from the court in handcuffs, black rosary beads around his neck, pending that ruling.
The court filings raise new questions about why Teixeira had such a high security clearance and access to some of the nation’s most classified secrets. They said he may still have material that hasn’t been released, which could 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 Teixeira’s detention hearing, Magistrate Judge David Hennessy expressed skepticism of defense arguments that the government hasn’t alleged Teixeira intended leaked information to be widely disseminated.
“Somebody under the age of 30 has no idea that when they put something on the Internet that it could end up anywhere in this world?” the judge asked. “Seriously?”
Teixeira entered his hearing in Worcester in orange prison garb, smiling at his father in the front row. His handcuffs were removed before he sat down and put back on when he was taken out.
The judge could order Teixeira to be confined at his father’s home or conditionally released while awaiting trial, if not held in jail.
“You have a young man before you who didn’t flee, has nowhere to flee,” said Brendan Kelley, the defendant’s lawyer. “He will answer the charges, he will be judged by his fellow citizens.”
But Nadine Pellegrini from the Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office told the judge the information prosecutors submitted to the court about the defendant’s threatening words and behavior “is not speculation, it is not hyperbole, nor is it the creation of a caricature. It is ... directly based upon the words and actions of this defendant.”
The defense asserted Teixeira no longer has access to any top-secret information and had accused prosecutors of providing “little more than speculation that a foreign adversary will seduce Mr. Teixeira and orchestrate his clandestine escape from the United States.”
The prosecution’s filing reviews what it says are Teixeira’s social media posts, stating in November that he would “kill a (expletive) ton of people” if he had his way, because it would be “culling the weak minded.”
Court papers urging a federal judge to keep Teixeira in custody detailed a troubling history going back to high school, where he was suspended when a classmate overheard him discussing Molotov cocktails and other weapons as well as racial threats. More recently, prosecutors said, he used his government computer to research past mass shootings and standoffs with federal agents.
He remains a grave threat to national security and a f light risk, prosecutors wrote. Investigators are still trying to determine whether he kept any physical or digital copies of classified information that hasn’t surfaced yet.
Teixeira has been in jail since his arrest this month on charges stemming from the most consequential intelligence leak in years.
Teixeira has been charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information. He has not yet entered a plea.