He’s scheduled to seem in courtroom Friday the place U.S. Justice of the Peace decide David Hennessy plans to rule on whether or not Teixeira ought to stay behind bars whereas awaiting trial. Of their Wednesday courtroom submitting, prosecutors supplied new proof, “which compounds the nationwide safety and public security dangers that the federal government beforehand famous to the Courtroom,” and reveals, they stated, that he shouldn’t be launched.
One of many teams the place he shared info had upward of 150 customers, officers stated, and among the many members “are plenty of people who represented that they resided in different international locations” and whose accounts hint again to international web addresses.
Teixeira’s “willful transmission of categorised info over an prolonged interval to greater than 150 customers worldwide” undermines his lawyer’s claims that he by no means meant for the data to be shared extensively, prosecutors wrote.
Teixeira’s lawyer filed courtroom papers arguing that prosecutors have wrongly in contrast his conduct to high-profile leak instances from the previous, when the case is extra just like lesser-known leak investigations wherein defendants have been launched on bond.
The brand new submitting additionally recounts on-line chats wherein Teixeira seems to each brag about how a lot categorised info he is aware of and has shared, and perceive the potential authorized penalties of such actions.
“Understanding what occurs greater than just about anybody is cool,” the airman allegedly wrote in a chat dated mid-November. When one other person steered he write a weblog concerning the info, Teixeira replied, “making a weblog could be the equal of what chelsea manning did,” referring to a major classified leak case in 2010.
The submitting additionally reveals that Teixeira was written up by colleagues for apparently not following guidelines for the usage of categorised methods. A Sept. 15 Air Drive memorandum included within the newly launched courtroom supplies notes that Teixiera “had been noticed taking notes on categorised intelligence info” inside a room particularly designed to deal with delicate categorised materials.
Teixeira, the Air Drive memo says, was instructed “to now not take notes in any kind on categorised intelligence info.” A couple of month later, a memo famous that Teixeira “was doubtlessly ignoring the cease-and-desist order” given to him in September. He was instructed to cease “any deep dives into categorised intelligence info and concentrate on his job,” that memo stated.
Then in January, a member of his unit noticed Teixeira “viewing content material that was not associated to his major responsibility and was associated to the intelligence discipline.” That memo additionally famous that Teixeira “had been beforehand notified to concentrate on his personal profession duties and to not hunt down intelligence merchandise.”
A member of the Massachusetts Air Nationwide Guard, Teixeira has been charged with two counts: retention and transmission of nationwide protection info and willful retention of categorised paperwork. He faces as much as 25 years in jail. Because the investigation proceeds, he may face extra fees.
Prosecutors and protection attorneys had sparred over whether or not Teixeira needs to be launched on bond. Federal prosecutors stated he posed a safety threat as a result of he may nonetheless possess categorised paperwork that investigators haven’t but discovered, and international governments may attempt to recruit him to seek out out what he is aware of.
Teixeira’s lawyer, Brendan Kelley, has stated that with cautious monitoring Teixeira may safely go residence — arguing authorities have tried to make a younger man who nonetheless lives together with his dad and mom locally the place he grew up sound extra harmful than he’s.
Hennessy, the decide, had pushed again on recommendations from Teixeira’s legal professional, who claimed his shopper solely meant to share the data with a small group of online friends, not the broader world.
“The defendant put top-secret info on the web, and your argument is that he had no concept that it will go wherever past the server,” Hennessy stated at a listening to final month. “I discover it a bit unbelievable that the defendant couldn’t foresee that risk.”
Teixeira’s father advised the courtroom final month that, if his son have been launched, he would notify authorities ought to any bond circumstances be violated, and that there could be safety cameras across the residence to alert the daddy to any motion there whereas he was at work.
“The harm the Defendant has already triggered to the U.S. nationwide safety is immense. The harm the Defendant continues to be able to inflicting is extraordinary,” prosecutors wrote in an earlier courtroom submitting. “Detention is critical to make sure that the Defendant doesn’t proceed on his harmful and damaging path.”
Of their filings, prosecutors have stated Teixeira exhibited disturbing conduct 5 years in the past whereas a highschool scholar, and was suspended after a classmate overheard him speaking about weapons, “together with Molotov cocktails, weapons on the faculty, and racial threats.”
Extra not too long ago, based on prosecutors, Teixeira posted feedback on-line about conducting a mass taking pictures, together with in November when he wrote in a social media submit that if he had his manner, he would “kill a … [expletive] ton of individuals,” which he stated could be “culling the weak minded.” In earlier courtroom filings, prosecutors additionally shared pictures of what they characterised as an “arsenal” of weapons present in his residence.
Teixeira’s lawyer has stated the speak of an arsenal was overheated — as a result of the weapons in courtroom photographs that had been regarded as in his room will not be actual weapons weapons, however replicas often called airsoft weapons. The firearms in Teixeira’s home are locked away in a cupboard, based on Kelley.
Prosecutors say there is also proof that, because the leak investigation progressed, Teixeira might have destroyed proof of his crimes and advised others to not speak to authorities. Earlier this month, Teixeira allegedly advised a web based pal: “If anybody comes wanting, don’t inform them” something, and inspired that individual to “delete all messages.”
Teixeira’s attorneys have pushed again towards these claims, saying Teixeira was peacefully studying a Bible when brokers got here to arrest him, and that prosecutors’ notions of the dangers to nationwide safety if he’s launched are far-fetched and fanciful.
The prosecution, Teixeira’s lawyer Allen Franco wrote in a courtroom submitting final month, has engaged in “hyperbolic judgments and gives little greater than hypothesis {that a} international adversary will seduce Mr. Teixeira and orchestrate his clandestine escape from america. This argument is illusory. The federal government has offered no articulable info to help these assertions.”
