A former National Security Agency employee was sentenced Monday to 262 months, almost 22 years, in prison for attempting to send classified information to someone he believed to be a Russian spy, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ ). As it turns out, the Russian spy was actually an FBI agent.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, a 32-year-old from Colorado Springs, was working as an information systems security designer at the NSA in 2022 when he began communicating with the undercover FBI agent. On August 26, 2022, Dalke demanded $85,000 from what he believed to be a Russian agent in exchange for information, according to the DOJ. Dalke emailed some excerpts from the documents through an encrypted email provider identified only as a foreign and “legitimate company.”
After terms were agreed upon, Dalke met the alleged Russian spy with a laptop at Union Station in downtown Denver. At this point, Dalke reportedly handed over four documents marked “Top Secret NDI,” top secret information related to national defense. Dalke was arrested a short time later.
Dalke, who served in the US Army from 2015 to 2018 before becoming a civilian employee at the NSA, first sent the undercover FBI agent a cryptocurrency address for payment and transferred an amount similar to that he received during the scheme, to the crypto exchange Kraken his real name, according to court documents. But that wasn’t the only obvious stupidity Dalke did. The NSA tracks every document printed at its facilities, making it easy to link those documents to Dalke.
From court documents:
NSA records of historical user activity on NSA systems show that DALKE received each of the three classified documents, excerpts thereof that the OCE obtained from Email Account-1, as well as the complete classified document that the OCE obtained from Email -Account-1 received, printed. DALKE was the only NSA employee who printed all of these documents.
Dalke pleaded guilty to the charges October 2023 and declared that he was deeply in debt. Court documents available in the PACER database show that Dalke filed for bankruptcy in 2017 because he owed about $90,000 to various creditors, including about $30,000 in student loans.
People with major debt problems are typically not granted high-level security clearances. This increases the likelihood that they will do risky things for money. But given that the average American had $21,800 in personal debt last yearExcluding mortgages, it could become increasingly difficult to find Americans for highly sensitive jobs.
But it was probably not just money problems that led Dalke to turn to alleged Russian agents. Court documents cite Dalke’s communications saying he recently learned he had Russian roots, “which is one of the reasons I came to you and not others.” Dalke also said he was applying for a job applied to the NSA because he “questioned our role in harming the world in the past, due to a mix of curiosity about secrets and a desire to effect change.”
Prosecutors were pleased with the sentence of nearly 22 years, and Attorney General Merrick Garland expressed that approval in a press release Monday.
“This defendant, who swore an oath to defend our country, believed he was selling classified national security information to a Russian agent when in reality he was outing himself to the FBI,” Garland said. “This verdict shows that those who seek to betray our country will be held accountable for their crimes. I am grateful to the FBI’s Denver and Washington field offices for their exceptional work on this case.”