“A civilian employee of the US Air Force assigned to the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), at Offutt Air Force Base, was arrested Saturday, March 2, for allegedly conspiring to transmit and transmitting classified information relating to the national defense (National Defense Information or NDI) on a foreign online dating platform beginning in or around February 2022 until in or around April 2022. According to the indictment, David Franklin Slater, 63, of Nebraska, worked in a classified space at USSTRATCOM and held a Top Secret security clearance from in or around August 2021 until in or around April 2022, after retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel from the US Army. It is alleged that Slater willfully, improperly, and unlawfully transmitted NDI classified as ‘SECRET,’ which he had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, on a foreign online dating platform to a person not authorized to receive such information.”

“According to the charging documents, Slater attended USSTRATCOM briefings regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine that were classified up to TOP SECRET//SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION (TS//SCI). Slater then transmitted classified NDI that he learned from those briefings via the foreign online dating website’s messaging platform to his co-conspirator, who claimed to be a female living in Ukraine on the foreign dating website. The co-conspirator regularly asked Slater to provide her with sensitive, non-public, closely held and classified NDI and called Slater in their messages her ‘secret informant love’ and her ‘secret agent.’ In response to these requests, Slater indeed provided classified NDI to her, including regarding military targets and Russian military capabilities relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” – Justice Department press release.