The Justice Department accused an Army doctor and Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist of conspiring to provide the Russian government with medical information about U.S. soldiers and their relatives.
According to a Hopkins website, the indictment names Jamie Lee Henry, a Army major at Fort Bragg, who had a secret security clearance, and Henry's spouse Anna Gabrielian, a Russian-speaker who is affiliated with Johns Hopkins.
They were charged with giving sensitive information to an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a representative of the Russian Embassy.
The FBI said Gabrielian had volunteered to help Russia through its embassy in Washington.
In an Aug. 17 meeting in a Baltimore hotel room, Gabrielian told the undercover FBI agent she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to give any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail, the indictment alleges.
The indictment says that Gabrielian reached out to the Russian Embassy by email and phone, offering Russian assistance from both her and her spouse, Henry.
She told the agent that although Henry knew she was reaching out to the Russian Embassy on both her behalf, she did not mention Henry's name in her interactions with the Russian Embassy, so Henry could claim lack of awareness.
Henry is male in the indictment, but Henry went public in 2015 as the first openly transgender Army officer. Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore, said Henry referred to himself as a male in interactions with the undercover FBI agent.
The indictment says that Gabrielian and Henry met with the undercover agent on Aug. 17. According to the indictment, Henry described a commitment to assisting Russia and had looked into volunteering to join the Russian army after the conflict began in Ukraine, but Russia wanted people with combat experience, and Henry did not have any. The indictment says Henry added that the United States is using Ukrainians as a proxy for their hatred toward Russia, and that's the way I am viewing what is going on in Ukraine. On Aug. 31, according to the indictment, the FBI agent met Gabrielian and Henry at a hotel in Gaithersburg, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
Gabrielian gave the agent medical information about the spouse of a person employed by the Office of Naval Intelligence and highlighted a medical issue that Russia could exploit, the indictment says.
Henry allegedly gave information on at least five people who were patients at Fort Bragg, including a retired Army officer, a current Department of Defense employee, the spouse of a U.S. Army veteran, and two spouses of deceased U.S. Army veterans.
The court records show that Gabrielian and Henry have been arrested, but it was not clear whether they have lawyers.
The defendants are liable for a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison on the conspiracy charge and a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each count of disclosing health information.
In a statement, a Johns Hopkins Medicine spokesman said we were shocked to learn about this news and intend to cooperate fully with investigators.