A former US army major and his wife, an anesthesiologist, have been criminally charged with allegedly plotting to leak highly sensitive healthcare data about military patients to Russia, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday.
Jamie Lee Henry, a former Major who was also a doctor at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and his wife, Dr Anna Gabrielian, were charged in a federal court in Maryland in a federal indictment of conspiracy and the wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information.
The indictment alleges that the plot started earlier this year after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
The indictment says that the pair wanted to help the Russian government by providing them with data to help the Putin regime get insight into the medical conditions of individuals associated with the US government and military.
Gabrielian told a hotel in Baltimore on 17 August that she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail, as per the indictment.
She volunteered to bring her husband into the scheme, saying he had information about prior military training the US provided to Ukraine.
Henry told the agent he was committed to Russia and had even contemplated volunteering to join the Russian army at another meeting later that day.
The US is using Ukrainians as a proxy for their own hatred toward Russia, according to a man who told the agent.
The agent told them to read a book called Inside the Aquarium: The Making of a Top Soviet Spy, Inside the Aquarium: The Making of a Top Soviet Spy, telling them that they would help them understand what they were about to do.
The agent said that it was the mentality of sacrificing everything and loyalty in you from day one. That is not something you walked away from. Henry had some reservations about providing healthcare data, saying it would violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA the indictment says, but his wife had no hesitations.
In a 24 August meeting, she told the undercover agent that her husband was a coward to be concerned with HIPAA but she would see if she could give Russia access to medical records from Fort Bragg patients.
She had handed over information on current and former military officials and their spouses by the end of the month, according to the indictment.