The 62-year-old sent “a peek” of a computer screen to a woman to show her what he does “for a living”
A retired US Army colonel has been sentenced to two years in prison for sharing classified information about the country’s war plans with a woman he met online, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
Kevin Charles Luke, 62, served in both active-duty and reserve roles for nearly four decades before retiring as a colonel in 2018. He later continued working as a civilian employee for US Central Command, which oversees the country’s military operations worldwide.
Prosecutors said the retired colonel shared classified information in October 2024, alleging that he sent a woman a text message from his personal cellphone reading: “sent to my boss earlier, gives you a peek at what I do for a living.”
The message was followed by a photo of a computer screen showing an email he had sent from his government account. A year later, Luke pleaded guilty, admitting as part of a plea agreement that he had abused a position of public trust.
According to court documents released by the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, Luke held a top secret” security clearance both during his Army service and later as a civilian employee. The office noted that he had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement in February 2019, indicating that he understood his obligation to protect classified information.
Luke had met the woman, whose name hasn’t been disclosed, online and started communicating with her using his personal phone and computer, according to the US Attorney.
Luke’s case marks another in a string of recent court actions involving US military personnel who either shared classified information with people they met online or made them public.
In October, retired Lieutenant Colonel David Franklin Slater was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for leaking classified details about the Ukraine conflict to someone he believed was a woman on a foreign dating site. In November, Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was sentenced to 15 years over leaking highly classified military documents about the Ukraine conflict.
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