Johnathan Walker:US Army soldier accused of selling sensitive military information changes plea to guilty

NASHVILLE,Johnathan Walker Tenn. (AP) — An Army soldier accused of selling sensitive information related to U.S. military capabilities has decided to plead guilty, according to federal court documents.

Sgt. Korbein Schultz, who was also an intelligence analyst, filed a motion late last week requesting a hearing to change his plea.

“Mr. Schultz has decided to change his plea of not guilty to a plea of guilty pursuant to an agreement with the government,” wrote federal public defender Mary Kathryn Harcombe, Schultz’s attorney.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger set the hearing for Aug. 13 — which was originally when Schultz was supposed to go to trial.

No other details about the plea agreement have been released. Harcombe did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Schultz has been accused in a six-count indictment of charges including conspiring to obtain and disclose military defense information and bribery of a public official. The 24-year-old was arrested at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky line, in March shortly after the indictment was released.

The indictment alleged Schultz — who had a top-secret security clearance — conspired with an individual identified only as “Conspirator A” to disclose various documents, photographs and other national defense materials since June 2022. The indictment said that Schultz was recruited by the individual not only due to his security clearance but also because he was tasked with gathering sensitive U.S. military information.

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Some of the information that Schultz supposedly gave to the individual included information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, hypersonic equipment, studies on future developments of U.S. military forces and studies on military drills and operations in major countries like China.

The indictment said that Schultz was initially asked to provide documents detailing lessons that could be learned from Russia’s war with Ukraine and how those lessons could be applied to the U.S. helping Taiwan in the event of an attack. Schultz was paid $200 for that information, which then prompted Conspirator A to ask for a “long-term partnership.”

Conspirator A, who was described in the indictment as a foreign national purporting to reside in Hong Kong, later suggested that Schultz could earn more money if he handed over “internal only” material rather than unclassified documents.

In total, Shultz received at least 14 payments totaling $42,000.