Accused Leaker Jack Douglas Teixeira In Worcester Thursday For Court Date

WORCESTER, MA — Prepare for some commotion in downtown Worcester Thursday: accused national security leaker Jack Douglas Teixeira will appear at the Main Street federal courthouse for a detention hearing, according to court records.

Teixeira, 21, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base, was arrested on April 13 at his home in Dighton on charges of violating the Espionage Act related and unlawful removal of defense material to an unauthorized location.

The New York Times first reported Teixeira led a gaming chat group made up of around 20 or 30 young men and teenagers, according to interviews and documents obtained by the newspaper.

In the group — called Thug Shaker Central — Teixeira leaked the classified documents over the last few months, the Times reported. Other topics of discussion apparently included guns, racist memes and video games.

The classified documents, which were found online last month, revealed details of the U.S. spying on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power, and intelligence gathering on U.S. allies.

The FBI arrested Teixeira after interviewing a member of Thug Shaker Central about the posted of classified material. Agents were able to track Teixeira down through his account profile on a web server, according to court documents. The user also told agents that Teixeira began taking classified documents home after he grew concerned that he would be caught.

In a Wednesday court filing, federal prosecutors said Teixeira poses a serious flight risk, and is facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Prosecutors also said he may still have access to classified documents that he took from a military facility.

"Not only does the Defendant stand charged with having betrayed his oath and his country but — when those actions began to surface — he appears to have taken a series of obstructive steps intended to thwart the government’s ability to ascertain the full scope of what he has obtained and the universe of unauthorized users with whom he shared these materials," the filing said.

Prosecutors also said Teixeira has a troubling personal history and was interviewed by Dighton police while he was in high school for talking about using weapons, including Molotov cocktails. He also kept an extensive gun collection at home, talked about building an "assassination van" and plans for a mass shooting.

"[I]n February 2023, the Defendant sought advice from another user about what type of rifle would be easy to operate from the back of an SUV. He describes how he would conduct the shooting in a 'crowded urban or suburban environment,'" court documents say.

Texiera made a court appearance last week in Boston, but the detention hearing will take place at 1 p.m. Thursday before Magistrate Judge David Hennessy, according to the court docket.