Holly MatkinBaltimore, MD – A federal grand jury indicted the U.S. Army’s first openly-transgender officer and a Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist, on allegations the married couple conspired to share confidential U.S. military medical information with Russia in an effort to give Russia an upper hand in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek Barron and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Baltimore Field Office Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Thomas Sobocinski announced the eight-count indictment against 39-year-old Major Jamie Lee Henry and 36-year-old Anna Gabrielian, in a press release after the couple’s arrests on Wednesday.
At the time of the alleged conspiracy, Henry was stationed at Fort Bragg working as a staff internist with secret level security clearance, Barron said.
Fort Bragg is home to the “Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, headquarters of the United States Army Special Operations Command, and the Womack Army Medical Center,” he noted.
Gabrielian was working at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine, the National Review reported.
According to the indictment, the couple “conspired to cause harm to the United States” by handing off confidential health information pertaining to Americans associated with the U.S. government and the U.S. military to an individual who they believed was “working for the Russian government.”
That individual was actually Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undercover agent.
Prosecutors alleged that beginning on Aug. 17, Gabrielian and Henry began communicating with the alleged Russian government official “to convey…their commitment to aid Russia, and to discuss ways in which they could help the Russian Government,” according to Barron.
While meeting with the undercover agent at a Baltimore hotel, Gabrielian said she was “motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail,” prosecutors said.
She further touted Lee as an even “more important source for Russia than she was, because he had more helpful information, including how the United States military establishes an army hospital in war conditions and information about previous training provided by the United States military to Ukrainian military personnel,” according to Barron’s office.
Lee met with the undercover agent later that night and told the agent he was “committed to assisting Russia,” investigators said.
He allegedly explained that he had been looking into how to volunteer to serve in the Russian Army after the invasion of Ukraine, but that Russia only wanted people with “combat experience,” according to Barron.
Prosecutors alleged that Gabrielian and Lee then offered to give the supposed Russian government official medical records from Johns Hopkins and the U.S. Army “in order to help the Russian government.”
The couple met up with the undercover agent at a hotel in Gaithersburg on Aug. 31 and handed over healthcare information on two individuals, including the spouse of an Office of Naval Intelligence employee who Gabrielian noted “had a medical condition Russia could ‘exploit,’” according to court documents.
Henry also provided healthcare information belonging to five individuals who were patients at Fort Bragg, NBC News reported.
Among them were two spouses of deceased U.S. Army veterans, the spouse of a U.S. Army veteran, a current Department of Defense employee, and a retired U.S. Army officer.
Although Henry went public as the first openly transgender U.S. Army officer back in 2015, he referred to himself as male during conversations with the supposed Russian government official, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore told NBC News.
A federal grand jury indicted Henry and Gabrielian each on seven counts of disclosing individually identifiable health information (IIHI) and one count of conspiracy on Wednesday.
They were arrested on Thursday and a federal judge subsequently released them both onto home detention with location monitoring while their cases are pending, WUSA reported.
They face a maximum of 10 years in prison for each of the disclosing of IIHI charges and a maximum of five years in prison for the conspiracy count.
“We were shocked to learn about this news this morning and intend to fully cooperate with investigators,” Johns Hopkins Medicine told NBC News in a statement.
