Prosecutors argued on Thursday that 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira should remain in jail for his trial because he stored a stockpile of weapons and expressed his desire to murder a “ton of people” on social media.
Teixeira is suspected of leaking highly sensitive military data. At Teixeira’s detention hearing, the judge deferred making a decision on whether to keep Teixeira in custody until his trial or to release him on home confinement or other terms. In anticipation of that decision, Teixeira was escorted out of court while wearing handcuffs and a black rosary around his neck. The court documents raise further concerns over Teixeira’s high-security clearance as well as access to some of the most sensitive information in the country.
Air National Guardsman Continues To Stay In Jail
They claim he still possesses unreleased data that might be of “tremendous value to hostile country states that might provide him a haven and try to facilitate his departure from the United States.” Magistrate Judge David Hennessy voiced skepticism of defense assertions that the government hasn’t shown Teixeira wanted the leaked material to be widely circulated during Teixeira’s detention hearing.
“Doesn’t anyone under the age of 30 realize that when they post something on the internet, it could end up anywhere in the world?” the judge wondered. “Seriously?”
The Air National Guardsman smiled at his father sitting in the front row when he arrived at his hearing in Worcester wearing orange prison clothes. Before he sat down, his handcuffs were taken off, and they were put back on when he was taken out.
If the Air National Guardsman is not kept in jail, the judge may decide that he be detained at his father’s house or granted conditional parole while awaiting trial.
The material prosecutors provided to the court on the defendant’s threatening statements and actions, however, “is not speculation, it is not hyperbole, and it is not the creation of a caricature,” Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini said to the judge. It is… specifically based on this defendant’s statements and deeds.
