Three 'extremely careless' individuals who faced chargeshttp://www.washingtonexaminer.com/three-extremely-careless-individuals-who-faced-charges/article/2596069Sarah Westwood
7/10/16 12:01 AM
Hillary Clinton may not have faced criminal charges for her "extremely careless" treatment of classified information, but other government officials who mishandled sensitive secrets have suffered severe consequences.
FBI Director James Comey indicated this week that he declined to recommend an indictment against the former secretary of state because his team found scant evidence of her intent to break the law, despite the series of misstatements she made regarding her private email network.
The legal community has since commenced a heated debate over the question of whether intent is a requirement for criminal charges involving the improper storage of classified documents.
While Clinton's case is unique in both its scope and complexity, the following three individuals faced criminal charges for what many have considered less serious violations of the law.
John Deutch, CIA director ...
Deutch, a former CIA director, stored highly-classified information on his personal computers and faced backlash over a withering inspector general report on the matter, much like Hillary Clinton.
...
Observers have drawn parallels between Hillary Clinton's conduct and the actions that landed Deutch in trouble because, among other similarities, Deutch used the same system to conduct his personal and official affairs. The overlap resulted in the transfer of classified information onto an unclassified system.
Deutch would have faced grave legal consequences for his improper record-keeping practices had Bill Clinton not spared him from the FBI's case.
Rickie Roller, Marine sergeant In 1993, Roller was sentenced to five years in prison after he accidentally took hard-copy classified documents home from his office in a gym bag.
...
Instead, he planned to destroy the records.
But before he could do so, movers whom Roller had hired to pack up his belongings in preparation for a job transfer found the papers in his personal desk and reported Roller to the authorities.
Roller was convicted under the federal statute forbidding "gross negligence" in the treatment of classified material. He was able to have his five-year sentence commuted to 10 months.
Arthur Gonzalez, Air Force staff sergeant Gonzalez was also charged with gross negligence in 1979 after he accidentally tossed a pair of top secret documents into a pile of his personal mail and took them on a trip to Alaska.
...they were later discovered by the next occupant to stay in the room in which Gonzalez had placed the documents.
The staff sergeant spent five months in prison.
