US State Department employee sentenced to four years in prison for selling information

(Patria) - A US State Department employee has been sentenced to four years in prison for conspiracy to collect and transmit national defense information to individuals he believed were working for the Chinese government, the Justice Department said, Reuters reported.

Michael Schena (42) of Alexandria, Virginia, worked at State Department headquarters in Washington. He held a top-secret security clearance and had access to information up to the secret level, the Justice Department said.
Beginning in April 2022, Schena communicated with people he met online through various platforms and provided them with sensitive US government information in exchange for money, the Justice Department said.

Two of these individuals posed as employees of international consulting firms, the Justice Department said. Believing they were acting on behalf of the Chinese government, Schena continued his relationship with them, the Justice Department said.

In August 2024, Schena met a person at a hotel in Peru who gave him $10,000 and a mobile phone he was to use to receive tasks and transmit information, prosecutors said.

In October 2024, while at work, Schena used the mobile phone he received in Peru to photograph and send at least four classified documents containing national defense information that were classified as secret, according to prosecutors.

Surveillance footage again captured Schena using a mobile phone to photograph seven documents marked "secret" containing national defense information in February this year, the Justice Department said, adding that FBI agents seized the phone before he could send those documents and arrested him.