State Department Employee Shared Secret Documents For Payment: Prosecutors

ALEXANDRIA, VA — An Alexandria man who works for the State Department is charged in federal court in relation to unauthorized sharing of national defense information.

Michael Charles Schena, 42, of Alexandria, a U.S. Department of State employees, was arrested, federal prosecutors reported on Friday. Schena, who worked at the Department of State headquarters in D.C., had a top secret security clearance and had access to information up to the secret level.

Prosecutors alleged that Schena started communicating with people through online communication platforms around April 2022. Court documents say he gave others information they were unauthorized to receive and got payments in return. Schena took cell phone images of multiple documents on Feb. 27 and displayed them on his classified computer monitor marked as "secret." Authorities seized his cell phone at his Alexandria home.

Schena faces a charge of conspiracy to gather, transmit, or lose national defense information. The charges could result in a sentence up to 10 years in prison. The FBI Washington Field Office led the investigation of the case.