Air Force veteran charged with leaking classified data on aircraft, weapons in latest military leak case

An Air Force veteran in Florida has been charged with unauthorized possession and transmission of classified documents related to U.S. aircraft and weapons, marking the latest case of a current or former service member accused of having mishandled sensitive information.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida announced Thursday that retired Lt. Col. Paul J. Freeman, 68, of Niceville, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on nine counts of retaining and sharing national defense information.

“As alleged in the indictment, Freeman transmitted, on multiple occasions between November 2020 and March 2021, classified national defense information about United States Air Force aircraft and weapons to individuals who were not authorized to access the information,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

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Prosecutors said in the news release that Freeman faces up to 10 years in federal prison on each of the nine counts. The FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations are working on the case, the release added.

A service record for Freeman, provided to Military.com by the Air Force, shows that he is retired from active duty. He joined the Army in 1975 as an airman and became an officer in 1984 after graduating from Officer Training School. He served until 2003 as a development engineer with the 46th Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The indictment does not detail the specific information Freeman is accused of disclosing or to whom it was allegedly sent.

Freeman has a detention hearing scheduled for Monday in Pensacola, Fla. No attorney was listed for him in federal court records, and he could not be reached at the phone numbers associated with him in public records.

Freeman's case is the latest in a series of charges and convictions that current and former military personnel have faced over the mishandling of classified and sensitive information.

In March, Military.com reported that a 53-year-old civilian employee — who was also a former Army officer — at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was accused of providing classified information via an online dating app to someone he believed was a woman in Ukraine.

That same month, Sergeant First Class Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman with the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to six Espionage Act violations related to the online leak of highly classified Defense Department information in early 2023.

Teixeira faces a sentence that could range from 11 months to about 16 years in prison, which could be one of the harshest sentences in history for such a crime, according to his plea agreement. Although his sentencing is expected later this year, the airman also faces an Air Force court-martial, Military.com reported in May.

In 2022, Lt. Col. Robert Birchum, a retired Air Force intelligence officer, entered into a plea deal with federal prosecutors and admitted to possessing a thumb drive containing 135 documents “containing information “Classified National Defense Information”, including collection methods and National Security Agency collection methods. targets, Military.com reported.

And last month, Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being accused of passing classified information to a person involved with a foreign government.

Related: Court sentences Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini to 18 years in prison for attempted espionage

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