US gov IT worker pleads guilty to sending Top Secret files to Ethiopia

He swore an allegiance to the US, but he was working for someone else. An IT specialist who worked across US government departments and held Top Secret clearance has pleaded guilty to transmitting sensitive documents to Ethiopia.

Abraham Teklu Lemma, 53, admitted to the espionage offenses and agreed to a prison term between 120 and 262 months, the Justice Department confirmed on Tuesday.

A naturalized citizen of the US, Lemma, of Maryland, had worked for the US government in different capacities and across different teams, including for the National Reconnaissance Office, State Department (DoS), and Justice Department (DoJ), between 2019 and 2023.

These roles included working evening hours as an IT help desk technician at the DoS as of 2021, and daytime work at the DoJ as a contract management analyst, according to court documents.

Lemma had what's known as "downdraft" authority, which is to say that he was permitted to move classified files between classified systems, and unclassified files …