Former Contractor Pleads Guilty to Spying for Ethiopia: Leaked Top Secret Information, Agreed Sentence of 120 to 262 Months
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on November 3 that Abraham Teklu Lemma, 53, of Maryland, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to conspiring to commit espionage on behalf of the government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Lemma was formerly an information technology contractor at the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lemma pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transmit national defense information to a foreign government. Under the plea agreement, if accepted by the court, he has agreed to be incarcerated for a period of between 120 and 262 months. Sentencing is set for April 14, 2027, before Senior Judge John D. Bates.
According to court documents, Lemma held a Top Secret U.S. security clearance. From 2021 until his arrest in August 2023, he conspired with senior officials in the political, military, and intelligence branches of the Ethiopian government to collect and transmit dozens of highly classified documents, notes, materials, and photographs, classified up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) level. The Department noted that material identified as Top Secret is material whose unauthorized disclosure is reasonably expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.
Much of the highly classified information Lemma shared concerned an armed conflict in Ethiopia. To conceal his conduct, he wrote notes by hand with classified information and hand-carried those notes out of secure U.S. government facilities, and, as an IT administrator, he removed electronic versions of classified information from classified government repositories and then removed the information from the secure facilities where he worked. On some occasions, the Department said, Lemma encouraged his Ethiopian government conspirators to take direct action against paramilitary groups fighting the Ethiopian government: on December 18, 2021, he told one conspirator, 'We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia,' and later that day, sharing additional information, wrote, 'Please send Dro[nes].'
'Lemma betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree,' said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg, noting that Lemma exploited his IT administrator access to remove classified national defense information, including Top Secret information, from a secure facility and transmitted it to Ethiopian government officials hoping they would use it to target and kill paramilitary fighters in a regional conflict. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro for the District of Columbia said Lemma exploited a position of trust for more than two years to provide highly classified U.S. government information to a foreign government, betraying his oath, his colleagues, and his country while jeopardizing national security. Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said Lemma by his own admission provided classified national defense information to Ethiopian officials, who then used it in military operations during an ongoing conflict.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office. The matter is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tejpal Chawla and Adam P. Barry for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Kathryn DeMarco of the Department of Justice's National Security Division.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国司法部本部大楼（GSM 四级固定图库）。 / Photo: U.S. Department of Justice headquarters building (GSM fixed asset library).
