A former U.S. Air Force contractor recently pleaded guilty to illegally taking about 2,500 pages of classified documents.
U.S. Attorney David DeVillers’ office said Thursday a former contractor with the United States Air Force pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Thursday to illegally taking approximately 2,500 pages of classified documents.Izaak Vincent Kemp, 35, of Fairborn, was charged on Jan. 25 by a Bill of Information, according to the Department of Justice.According to court documents, Kemp was employed as a contractor at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) from July 2016 to May 2019, and later as a contractor at the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). While working at AFRL and NASIC on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Kemp had Top Secret security clearance.DeVillers said despite having training on various occasions on how to safeguard classified material, Kemp took 112 classified documents and retained them at his home. Law enforcement discovered the more than 100 documents, which contained approximately 2,500 pages of material classified at the SECRET level, while executing a search warrant at Kemp’s home on May 25, 2019.
The documents were discovered during a search in 2019, after a warrant was issued alleging that the home was a “marijuana growing facility.”
The documents were marked “Special Access Programs,” indicating that they were stored in a protective environment.”During a voluntary interview, which took place during execution of a search warrant, Kemp admitted to printing the classified materials at work and bringing them home for storage,” FBI Special Agent Brandt Pangburn said at the time.
When the case first became public in the summer of 2019, many questions arose about how an employee could take thousands of pages of classified documents from a workplace.
“I think a lot of people might be surprised at just how easy it is to abscond with classified documents,” Sean Bigley, a security clearance defense attorney and a former investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told the Dayton Daily News in July 2019.Unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors, the prosecuting attorneys said.
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