A former State Department information technology administrator procured scores of classified U.S. intelligence reports for a foreign intelligence official, according to an indictment newly unveiled by federal officials.

"The two espionage charges carry a potential penalty of death or any term of years up to life in prison, and the willful retention charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison," the Justice Department noted. "A federal judge will determine any sentence based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors."

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Justice Department officials accused Abraham Teklu Lemma, a Maryland resident, of exploiting his role as a “help desk technician” in the State Department’s intelligence bureau to provide classified information to a foreign spy in exchange for cash payments. The case involves “an African country” where the contractor, whom the Justice Department identified as “a naturalized U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent,” “has family ties,” although the charging documents do not name the country explicitly.

“Lemma copied and pasted information from at least 85 Intelligence Reports regarding many topics — the majority of which relate to the Relevant Country,” an FBI counterintelligence officer said in a sworn affidavit. “Lemma copied and pasted classified information from Intelligence Reports from non-DOS classified portals into Microsoft Word (“Word”) documents on the classified DOS computer system ... Reports that Lemma was reviewing and copying was classified at the TOP SECRET and SECRET levels, and also related primarily to the Relevant Country.”

Lemma, who is also a Justice Department "contract management analyst," and his alleged foreign intelligence handler used an encrypted messaging application to communicate “military activities of a rebel group involved in an armed struggle against the government of the Relevant Country.” Ethiopia has been convulsed since 2020 by a civil war that pits the Ethiopian central government against the forces of Tigray, a region home to an ethnic minority that historically has taken a predominant role in Ethiopian politics.

“[W]e making [sic] significant progress on averting the … in few days we will achieve the critical milestones,” the foreign intelligence official is quoted as writing to Lemma. “[I]t is great to identify the forward deployed command centers and logistic centers.”

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Unbeknownst to Lemma, some of his allegedly illicit access to the intelligence information “was observed” on multiple occasions. And while he and his interlocutor seemed to have taken some precautions, he called attention to himself by depositing large sums of cash into his bank account and “was observed angrily discouraging an employee” of the bank from filing a required currency transaction report to the U.S. Treasury Department.

“Specifically, Lemma tried to convince the employee that his transaction was not subject to reporting despite deposits in excess of $10,000,” the affidavit states. “Review of Lemma’s U.S. Bank 1 account records further revealed that Lemma made several large deposits, totaling in excess of $55,000, into U.S. Bank 1 between January 1, 2022 until July 17, 2023 ... Lemma intentionally structured his transactions to avoid such reporting requirements.”