A longtime defense contractor from South Dakota was sentenced to 10 years in prison for trying to share classified information about the United States Air Force with Russia, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.
John Murray Rowe, Jr., 67, pleaded guilty last year to multiple espionage charges originally brought against him in December 2021, according to the Justice Department.
Among those charges were one count of attempting to deliver national defense information to a foreign government and three counts of willfully communicating national defense information. He was sentenced to 126 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and fined $25,000.
Rowe was employed for almost four decades as a test engineer for several cleared defense contractors and held "secret" and "top secret" national security clearances as part of his employment, the Justice Department said, citing court documents. Some of his work involved Air Force electronic warfare technology.
Federal authorities say they took Rowe into custody after he shared, in extensive online and in-person communications, classified national security information with an undercover FBI agent who he believed was working for the Russian government. The information included "specific operating details of the electronic countermeasure systems used by U.S. military fighter jets, among other things," which were classified as "secret" by the U.S. government, according to the Justice Department.
Throughout much of 2020, Rowe exchanged hundreds of emails with the undercover FBI agent and met the agent twice in person, the department said, adding that the correspondence showed Rowe "confirming his willingness to work for the Russian government and discussing his knowledge of classified information relating to U.S. national security."
Authorities say that in one of those emails, Rowe told the undercover agent, "If I can't get a job [in the United States then I'll go work for the other team."
"Despite his knowledge, training, experience, and decades of work as a military contractor, Rowe chose to betray the trust placed in him by his country," said U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which investigated Rowe's case, in a statement. "His repeated, willful efforts to harm the U.S. by divulging sensitive defense information to an adversary are inexcusable. My office and our partners will continue to hold fully accountable anyone seeking to compromise the national security of the United States."
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She typically covers breaking news, extreme weather and issues involving social justice. Emily Mae previously wrote for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
