A civilian Air Force employee shared classified information about Russia’s war in Ukraine with a woman he met on a foreign dating app, federal investigators said.
David Slater, 63, worked at U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., according to the Justice Department. Prior to his civilian work, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Army.
Slater met someone claiming to be a Ukrainian woman on an unspecified dating platform, the feds said. From February to April in 2022, Slater supplied the woman with top secret information he’d sworn not to release, according to investigators.
Slater “knowingly transmitted classified national defense information to another person in blatant disregard for the security of his country and his oath to safeguard its secrets,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a press release.
The woman, identified in the indictment only as “co-conspirator 1,” called Slater her “secret informant love” and “secret agent” in messages on the platform, according to the indictment against Slater.
“By the way, you were the first to tell me that NATO members are traveling by train and only now (already evening) this was announced on our news,” the woman wrote on March 15, according to the feds. “You are my secret informant love! How were your meetings? Successfully?”
A few days later, she allegedly wrote, “Beloved Dave, do NATO and Biden have a secret plan to help us?”
The last message cited by prosecutors was sent on April 21. That was Slater’s last month working for the Air Force, the feds said.
Slater was charged with conspiracy to share classified information and two counts of unauthorized disclosure of that information. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count.
