FLASH
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Michael Charles Schena, a former officer of the Southern Caribbean Office in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, sent classified documents to individuals he believed were agents of the People's Republic of China and received between $13,000 and $37,000 in exchange, according to court records.
"I am a traitor," Schena, 42, admitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation after his arrest in March, according to court records.
Schena, a foreign affairs officer for the State Department since 2007, waived a preliminary hearing and remained in custody until his sentencing on September 4. His official duties included “providing reporting, analysis, and policy recommendations to the State Department on matters related to U.S. foreign affairs, according to court records.”
According to court documents, beginning in April 2022, Michael Charles Schena, 42, of Alexandria, Virginia, communicated with people he met online through various communication platforms and offered them sensitive U.S. government information in exchange for money. Two of these individuals posed as employees of international consulting firms. Despite clear indications and the belief that they were working on behalf of the People’s Republic of China, Schena continued his relationship with them.
In August 2024, Schena met an individual at a hotel in Peru who gave Schena $10,000 and a cellphone that would be used by Schena to receive assignments and transmit information.
In October 2024, while at work, Schena used the cell phone he obtained in Peru to photograph and transmit at least four classified documents containing national defense information and which were classified at the SECRET level.
In February 2025, security cameras caught Schenan again using his cell phone to photograph seven documents marked SECRET that contained national defense information.
FBI agents seized the cell phone before Schena could transmit photographs of these classified documents to his handlers and arrested Schena.
“The defendant threw away his career, betrayed his country, and abused the trust the United States placed in him by granting him a Top Secret security clearance. He will spend years of his life in prison for providing classified information to individuals he believed were agents of the Chinese government. This sentence serves as a warning to those who would violate the trust our Nation has placed in them and deceive the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert for the Eastern District of Virginia said: “The price of Michael Schena’s shameful betrayal of his country is far greater than the small sum for which he traded his honor. His acts of selfish greed have cost the loyal men and women of our intelligence community and the nation they serve. The price Schena will pay is the loss of his integrity, his reputation and, with today’s sentencing, his freedom.”
The sentence was announced by U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff.
The case was investigated by the FBI's Washington Field Office, the FBI's Richmond Field Office, the Department of Justice's Office of Enforcement Operations, and the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service's Office of Counterintelligence.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ben'Ary and Gavin R. Tisdale for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Maria Fedor of the Homeland Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
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