Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman who is accused of posting a trove of classified documents to social media, will be detained while he awaits trial, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Magistrate Judge David Hennessy had been considering whether Teixeira would continue to be held behind bars for weeks, as prosecutors and defense lawyers repeatedly battled over whether the 21-year-old Massachusetts native posed a continued threat to national security.
"What the record at this point shows is a profound breach of the defendant's word that he would protect information and the security of the United States and its allies," Hennessy said during a hearing Friday.
Teixeira was arrested on April 14 and has been charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials.
Teixeira has not yet entered a formal plea. His defense lawyers have argued he didn't expect classified information that he posted on Discord to be further spread around the internet.
In recent court documents arguing for Teixeira's continued detention, prosecutors said that new evidence in the government's investigation into him "belies the defendant's efforts to minimize his criminal conduct and undercuts the defendant's claim that he can be trusted to adhere to conditions of release imposed by the court.
"In short, the weight of the evidence against the defendant has only grown stronger, and the risks the defendant poses if released have only come into sharper focus," prosecutors wrote. "Because no condition or combination of conditions would satisfy the concrete and serious concerns raised by the government, the defendant should remain detained."
This story is breaking and will be updated.
