By Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post
Federal prosecutors in Baltimore on Thursday said they will charge with violating the Espionage Act a former National Security Agency contractor accused of carrying out perhaps the largest theft of classified government material ever.
In a 12-page memo, U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein and two other prosecutors laid out a much more far-reaching case against Harold Martin III than was previously outlined.
Martin, who will appear at a detention hearing in U.S. District Court on Friday, took at least 50 terabytes of digital data, thousands of pages of documents, dozens of computers and other digital storage devices over two decades, the government alleged.
In a complaint unsealed earlier this month, the government charged him with felony theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, a misdemeanor. Conviction under the Espionage Act could send Martin to prison for up to 10 years on each count.
Prosecutors will argue Friday that Martin, 51, presents “a high risk of flight, a risk to the nation, and to the physical safety of others” and that he should not be released from jail.
“The case against the defendant thus far is overwhelming, and the investigation is ongoing,” Rosenstein said. “The defendant knows, and, if no longer detained, may have access to, a substantial amount of highly classified information, which he has flagrantly mishandled and could easily disseminate to others.”
Continued detention without bail is necessary, prosecutors said, because of “the grave and severe danger that pretrial release of the defendant would pose to the national security of the United States.”
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