Judge orders release of engineer charged with retaining classified records [View all]
Source: Washington Post
August 13, 2024 at 5:16 p.m. EDT
A Defense Department engineer accused of mishandling highly classified records should be released from jail to home confinement pending trial, a federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday. Prosecutors immediately said they would appeal the decision to a more senior judge in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va.
Justice Department officials argued that Gokhan Gun, a dual citizen of Turkey and the United States who obtained a security clearance in September 2023 upon joining the Defense Department’s civilian workforce, “poses an unacceptable risk to the public” and “has no real ties to the community.” The 50-year-old electrical engineer owns three properties in Virginia, one in the Miami area and another in Texas, records show. His parents live in Turkey and he has no immediate family in the area, prosecutors said.
At a hearing Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis repeatedly told prosecutors that the charge Gun is facing — unauthorized removal and retention of classified information — does not carry a presumption of pretrial detention even after Congress made the offense a felony in 2018. He compared Gun to an NFL player who signs a nondisclosure agreement.
“What’s so serious about this case other than the fact that it involves classified material?” Davis said. The judge added that prosecutors had not shown that Gun intended to share the classified documents with others and that the court’s pretrial services office recommended he be released from jail pending trial.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/08/13/gokhan-gun-classified-documents/
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