David Slater shared classified information with a “Ukrainian female” user on an online dating platform.

A civilian working for the U.S. Air Force and assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base was apprehended on Saturday, 2 March and charged with conspiring to transmit and actually transmitting classified information related to national defense (National Defense Information or NDI) on a foreign online dating platform, between February 2022 and April 2022.

The individual, 63-year-old David Franklin Slater of Nebraska, had been employed in a classified capacity at USSTRATCOM and held a Top Secret security clearance from August 2021 until April 2022. Slater, a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the U.S. Army, allegedly willfully and unlawfully conveyed NDI classified as “secret” on a foreign online dating platform to an unauthorized recipient, posing a potential threat to the United States or benefiting a foreign nation, the Department of Justice said. 

The charging documents reveal that Slater shared classified NDI, obtained from USSTRATCOM briefings on Russia’s war against Ukraine, via a foreign online dating platform's messaging system.

His co-conspirator, posing as a female residing in Ukraine, consistently requested sensitive and classified information, referring to Slater as her “secret informant love” and “secret agent.”

Slater complied with these requests, disclosing information regarding military targets and Russian military capabilities in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.

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David Slater is scheduled to appear in court on 5 March in the District of Nebraska. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a maximum fine of 250,000 dollars for each count of conspiracy to transmit and the transmission of national defense information.

The FBI Omaha Field Office and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations are jointly investigating the case, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Kleine and Trial Attorney Emma Dinan Ellenrieder prosecuting.

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