DENVER, Colo. — A Colorado Springs man has been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for attempted espionage, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Denver.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, who is 32-years-old, was sentenced for his efforts to send classified National Defense Information (NDI) to an agent of the Russian Federation.
“This sentence should serve as a stark warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information that there are consequences to betraying that trust,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Dalke believed he was passing classified information to an agent of the Russian government. The hard work of our FBI employees prevented that from happening and any potential harm to the United States.”
According to court documents, Dalke plead guilty in October 2023 to six counts of attempting to transmit classified NDI to a foreign agent.
WATCH: Man found guilty of trying to give Russian agents information
From June 6 to July 1, 2022, Dalke was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), where he was an Information Systems Security Designer.
Dalke admitted that between August and September 2022, he used an encrypted email address to transmit excerpts of three classified documents to someone he believed to be a Russian agent, however, it was an undercover FBI employee.
Around August 26, 2022, Dalke requested $85,000 in return for all the information in his possession. Dalke said the information would be valuable to Russia, and he told the undercover FBI employee he would share more information in the future.
FBI Denver says the excerpts contained NDI and are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI).
Dalke arranged to transfer additional classified information to the purported Russian agent at Union Station in Denver. He transferred five files online, four of which contained Top Secret NDI, according to FBI Denver.
Dalke was arrested on September 28, 2023.
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