‘My secret informant love’: Air Force employee charged with sharing classified info on foreign dating site
BELLEVUE, Neb. (WOWT/Gray News) - An Air Force civilian employee is facing charges after he allegedly shared classified information on a foreign dating app.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. David Franklin Slater, 63, of Nebraska, worked at the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base.
Officials say Slater held top secret security clearance while working in a classified area of STRATCOM from August 2021 to April 2022, when he retired.
According to court documents, Slater attended regular briefings about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
From February 2022 to April 2022, he allegedly transmitted national defense information on a foreign online dating app to someone he believed was a woman in Ukraine.
“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,’” a release from the Department of Justice states. “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.”
Slater was arrested over the weekend and faces conspiracy charges. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison plus three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count.
FBI Omaha and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations have been investigating this case.
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