A former employee of a U.S. Department of Defense component agency was sentenced to federal prison for mishandling sensitive documents.
Margaret Anne Ashby, 26, of Henderson, Nevada, was hired in March 2020 as a civilian employee of a Department of Defense component agency located in the Southern District of Georgia. As required for her employment, Ashby possessed a Top Secret security clearance.
From February 2022 to May 2022, Ashby, without authority, knowingly removed documents and materials containing classified information described in the plea agreement as “concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States.” She did so “with the intent to retain them at unauthorized locations, including her residence in the Southern District of Georgia and in digital files saved via a personal computing device located in the Southern District of Georgia.”
Ashby was sentenced to 36 months in prison and a fine of $15,000 after pleading guilty to Unauthorized Removal/Retention of Classified Documents, said Tara M. Lyons, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall also ordered Ashby to serve three years of supervised release upon completion of her prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
“Certain responsibilities are mandatory to individuals with access to Top Secret information and when the trust placed on them to protect our national intelligence is violated, they put our country at risk,” said Paul Brown, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “We will continue work with our partners to protect the American people and uphold the constitution by safeguarding our country’s classified information.”
