Ex-NSA Employee gets 22 Years in Prison for Trying to Sell U.S. Secrets to Russia

In a stark message to those safeguarding classified information, a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee received a nearly 22-year prison sentence for attempting to transfer sensitive documents to Russia.

FBI Director Christopher Wray emphasized, “This sentence should serve as a stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information that there are consequences to betraying that trust.”

Jareh Sebastian Dalke, a 32-year-old from Colorado Springs, held the position of Information Systems Security Designer for a brief period between June 6 and July 1, 2022. During this time, he had access to highly confidential material.

Despite his short stint at the intelligence agency, Dalke reportedly contacted someone he believed to be a Russian agent sometime between August and September of that year. Unbeknownst to him, however, this individual was an undercover FBI operative.

In an attempt to prove his “legitimate access and willingness to share,” Dalke sent the supposed Russian agent snippets of three top-secret National Defense Information (NDI) documents he had obtained during his employment. He used an encrypted email account to transmit these fragments.

Jareh Sebastian Dalke demanded $85,000 in exchange for providing full access to all the files in his possession. He convinced his contact that the information would be valuable to Russia and promised to share additional documents upon his return to Washington, D.C.

Following his transfer of five files to the presumed Russian spy via a laptop computer at Denver’s Union Station on September 28, 2022, Dalke was apprehended by authorities. The defendant pleaded guilty to the charges in October 2023.

The U.S. Justice Department revealed, “As part of his plea agreement, Dalke admitted that he willfully transmitted files to the FBI online covert employee with the intent and reason to believe the information would be used to injure the United States and to benefit Russia.”