The Justice Department announced Tuesday that Abraham Teklu Lemma, a 53-year-old Maryland IT worker with a Top Secret clearance, pleaded guilty to espionage offenses for sending classified intelligence reports to Ethiopian officials. Lemma agreed to a prison term of 120 to 262 months under the plea agreement.
Lemma Held Top Secret Clearance Across Three Federal Agencies
Lemma has held a Top Secret clearance since 2020. Between 2019 and 2023 he worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, the State Department and the Justice Department. At State, he served as an evening help desk technician from 2021. At Justice he was a contract management analyst.
His roles gave him authority to move classified files between systems, access the plea documents show he used to copy material he had no need to see.
At Least 133 Intelligence Reports Copied Without Need-to-Know
Lemma copied information from at least 133 intelligence reports without a need-to-know. He burned more than 100 documents onto discs, removed the classification markings and labeled the discs with green unclassified stickers. He then carried the discs out of secure facilities in his jacket. The conduct continued until around August 2023.
Ethiopian Officials Received Material Through Encrypted Messaging and Remote Drive Access
Lemma sent material to senior Ethiopian political, military and intelligence officials over an encrypted messaging app. The documents give different start dates for the activity. The criminal complaint said it began in July 2022, the Justice Department later said 2021, and the plea describes it as starting around August to September 2022.
Ethiopian Officials Accessed Lemma’s Personal Drives Remotely
Lemma also stored copies of the material on personal drives. Ethiopian officials accessed those drives remotely between April and June 2023, which gave them direct retrieval access instead of relying on Lemma to send files.
Bank Deposits Above $66,000 Accompany the Case
While working for the foreign officials, Lemma made bank deposits exceeding $66,000. The Justice Department did not describe the source of those deposits in the material reported.
The Plea Sets a Minimum Ten-Year Term for Lemma
The plea agreement carries a range of 120 to 262 months, so Lemma faces a minimum of 10 years in prison. The compromised information includes Secret and Top Secret intelligence reports. The Justice Department announcement does not list the contents of the reports or describe any specific harm resulting from Ethiopia’s receipt of them.
What the Lemma Case Shows About Removable Media and Cross-Agency Access
The case turns on a worker who had legitimate authority to handle classified files on behalf of several agencies and used it to take material from systems he supported. The physical methods he used, burning documents to discs and carrying them out of secure facilities, were low-technology and evaded detection for roughly two years across three agencies, from the first documented copying around 2021 or 2022 until August 2023.
His employment history, spread across the intelligence community, State and Justice in help desk and contract roles, illustrates the access that IT support functions can hold. Technicians and analysts who maintain systems often carry elevated access to many files without a corresponding mission need to read them.
The differences in start dates among the complaint, the later Justice Department statement and the plea leave the early timeline of the conduct unsettled, and sentencing proceedings may clarify when the transfers began.
Lemma removed classification markings before burning the material to discs and labeled the discs as unclassified, steps that made the media look like ordinary unclassified storage. The plea covers material from at least 133 intelligence reports and a period running from the encrypted-app transfers that began around Aug-Sep 2022 to the remote drive access between April and June 2023.
