Overview
- Kevin Charles Luke, 62, was sentenced in Florida federal court after pleading guilty to unlawfully transmitting national defense information.
- In October 2024, he texted a photo of a classified email detailing an upcoming military operation to a woman he met online from his personal phone.
- The image showed a message marked SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY and included the operation’s date, number of targets, objectives, and method of execution.
- Prosecutors said the disclosure could be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. national security and sought four years in prison, but Judge James Moody imposed two.
- Luke, a former colonel who later worked at CENTCOM with a top secret clearance and had signed an NDA in 2019, expressed remorse as his lawyer described the act as a moment of bad judgment to impress the recipient.