Former ANB officer sentenced to 21 months and 10 years in prison for attempting to spy on behalf of a foreign state.
The sentence handed down to the 32-year-old Heat Sebastian Dalka from Colorado Springs, a former NSA employee, has been described by FBI director Christopher Ray as a stern warning for those entrusted with safeguarding national defense information about the consequences of betrayal.
Dalka had worked as a designer of information systems security at the NSA from June 6 to July 1, 2022, giving him access to sensitive information despite his brief tenure at the agency. Between August and September that same year, he made contact with an individual he believed to be an agent of a foreign state, who was actually an undercover FBI agent.
To prove his access and willingness to share classified information, Dalka sent fragments from three secret defense documents he had obtained while working, using an encrypted email account. He then demanded $85,000 in exchange for providing all the files he possessed, claiming that the information would be valuable to the buyer, and promised additional documents upon his return to Washington.
Dalka was apprehended on September 28, 2022, shortly after transferring five files to the supposed spy at Union Station in downtown Denver using a laptop. He pleaded guilty in October 2023.
The US Department of Justice highlighted that as part of his guilty plea agreement, Dalka confessed to intentionally passing on the files to the FBI employee under the guise that the information would be used to harm the US and benefit a foreign state.