Retired officer puts secret info on dating app, goes to prison

A retired Army lieutenant colonel received about six years in prison on Wednesday for sharing top defense secrets with a user on a dating website. The nearly 40-year veteran, David Slater, pleaded guilty in July to federal conspiracy charges for sharing defense information with a user posing as a Ukrainian woman. The 64-year-old will also pay a $25,000 fine and serve a year of supervised release after his 70 months are up.

What information did he share? After retiring from the Army in 2020, Slater began serving in a classified area at the U.S. Strategic Command, where he attended briefings on Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine. Slater held a Top Security clearance. He shared lower-level, but still classified or secret information, while messaging on an unidentified dating app from February to April in 2022, according to a news release from the Justice Department.

The unnamed Ukrainian user, named by the Justice Department only as a co-conspirator, asked Slater for classified defense information. The indictment alleged that Slater shared information on military targets in the war and other information on Russia’s military prowess. Prosecutors cited messages in which the co-conspirator told Slater, “You are my secret informant love! How were your meetings?” and “My sweet Dave, thanks for the valuable information.”

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on a similar case of an Air National Guardsman charged with leaking information on social media.