Retired Army Lt. Col. David Franklin Slater, 64, was working for U.S. Strategic Command as an Air Force civilian when he sent classified national defense information about Ukraine through a dating site. Slater pleaded guilty Thursday, July 10, 2025, to conspiring to leak the information. (Offutt Air Force Base/Facebook)
A retired Army officer working for the Air Force pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to send classified national defense information through an international dating platform where he believed he was speaking with a Ukrainian woman.
Retired Lt. Col. David Franklin Slater, 64, was working for U.S. Strategic Command as an Air Force civilian when he sent the messages between February and April 2022, according to court documents filed in federal court in Nebraska, where STRATCOM is located. The joint command is responsible for global strike and information operations for the military and is headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base.
The woman regularly asked Slater to send her classified information related to Russia’s war with Ukraine that he had access to through his job, according to the plea agreement.
Messages sent to Slater included “Beloved Dave, do NATO and (U.S. President Joe) Biden have a secret plan to help us?” and “Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very unpleasant ‘surprise’ for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin! Will you tell me?”
She often referred to him as her “secret informant love” and “secret agent,” according to court documents.
Slater, who was indicted in March 2024, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine, according to the plea agreement. A hearing to sentence Slater has not yet been scheduled.
“Access to classified information comes with great responsibility. David Slater failed in his duty to protect this information by willingly sharing national defense information with an unknown online personality despite having years of military experience that should have caused him to be suspicious of that person’s motives,” said U.S. Attorney Lesley A. Woods for the District of Nebraska.
Slater retired from the Army in 2020 and was awarded a Bronze Star among more than a dozen other decorations, according to his official service record. He commissioned as a logistics officer in 1984 after serving three years enlisted. He deployed to Afghanistan three times and Iraq once.
