Georgia
5 years for leaker of secret report
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - A former government contractor who pleaded guilty to mailing a classified U.S. report to a news organization was sentenced to more than five years Thursday as part of a deal with prosecutors, who called it the longest sentence ever imposed for a federal crime involving leaks to the media.
Reality Winner, 26, pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information. The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency's office in Augusta, Georgia, when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet.
In court Thursday, Winner apologized and acknowledged that what she did was wrong.
Authorities never identified the news organization. But the Justice Department announced Winner's June 2017 arrest the same day The Intercept reported on a secret NSA document. It detailed Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida-based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner had leaked.
U.S. intelligence agencies later confirmed Russian meddling.
The judge's sentence was in line with a plea agreement between Winner's defense team and prosecutors, who recommended she serve five years and three months behind bars. Prosecutors said in a court filing that punishment would amount to "the longest sentence served by a federal defendant for an unauthorized disclosure to the media."
Among other leak cases cited by prosecutors in court documents, the stiffest prior sentence was three years and seven months in prison given to former FBI explosives expert Donald Sachtleben. Secret information he leaked included intelligence he gave to The Associated Press for a story about a U.S. operation in Yemen in 2012.
Winner spent a year in jail before reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. Her attorneys had argued for Winner to be released on bond, noting she had no criminal record and had served honorably in the military. The judge sided with prosecutors who said Winner posed a potential flight risk and may have stolen other classified documents.
Prosecutors also used Winner's own words against her, including a Facebook chat in which Winner once wrote to her sister: "Look, I only say I hate America like 3 times a day."
Winner's social media postings also included some scathing opinions on President Donald Trump. Three months before her arrest, Winner posted on Facebook that climate change was a more important issue than health care "since not poisoning an entire population seems to be more in line with 'health' care, and not the disease care system that people voted for a soulless ginger orangutan to 'fix.'"
Despite prosecutors' warnings that Winner may have stolen other U.S. secrets, she was never charged with additional crimes.
Winner grew up in Kingsville, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from high school. Her parents have said she became a linguist, speaking Arabic and Farsi, and spent four years assigned to the NSA at Fort Mead, Maryland. During that time, Winner provided real-time translation to Americans conducting field missions.
After leaving the military, Winner moved to Augusta to become a civilian contractor for the NSA, which has operated a $286 million complex in the Georgia city since 2012. Court records say Winner translated documents from Farsi to English for the agency.
Winner confessed to leaking the classified report when FBI agents questioned her at her home in June 2017. Winner said she was frustrated at work and had filed complaints "about them having Fox News on."
Prosecutors later made the 77-page transcript of Winner's FBI interview part of the court file in her case. Any details about the document she leaked and the organization she mailed it to were redacted. But the rest of her confession to FBI agents became public.
"Yeah, I screwed up royally," Winner told the agents before she was arrested.
Missouri
Feds: Woman arrested in Kansas City had 5 pounds of fentanyl
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Federal authorities say a woman traveling from Los Angeles to New York had enough fentanyl in her luggage to make 1.5 million lethal doses when she was stopped at a Kansas City bus station.
The U.S. Attorney's office said 33-year-old Evelyn Sanchez was arrested Tuesday and charged with possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute.
She remains in federal custody awaiting a detention hearing, which hasn't been scheduled.
The prosecutors say Kansas City police, working with federal agents, found more than 5 pounds of the drug packaged in two bundles when they searched her suitcase after a K-9 alerted to it.
William Callahan, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent based in St. Louis, said in a news release that the seizure would keep "1.5 million lethal doses" off the streets.
Montana
Judge weighs new trial for man convicted in murder
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - A federal judge is considering a new trial for a man convicted of murdering a woman on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation after defense attorneys accused the government of withholding evidence that could have helped his case.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys for Dimarzio Swade Sanchez spent more than two hours interrogating witnesses Thursday over a cellphone with a calendar entry that appeared to reference the brutal killing of Roylynn Rideshorse. She died two months after being strangled, doused with gasoline and lit on fire in June 2016.
The calendar entry describes someone beating and kicking Rideshorse and expressing remorse for not telling the truth. It was brought to the attention of federal agents on Dec. 8, 2017 - the day after Sanchez was found guilty following a four-day jury trial.
The phone was allegedly bought and sold by several different individuals before a woman saw the message regarding Rideshorse and notified authorities.
Federal agents questioned by prosecutors during Thursday's hearing said it was unknown when the calendar entry was created or who owned the phone at the time.
But Sanchez's attorneys claim the entry contradicts testimony from several witnesses who implicated him, including two co-defendants who pleaded guilty to lesser charges. The defense also claims the government violated due process rules by waiting 91 days to turn over details on the phone.
U.S. District Judge Susan Watters did not rule immediately on the request for a new trial.
The sentencing of the co-defendants has been delayed pending Watters' decision.
Sanchez's brother, Frank, previously pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and Angelica Jo Whiteman pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting first-degree murder.
Published: Fri, Aug 24, 2018
