A former Army sergeant with top-secret clearance at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday for attempting to provide national defense information to China.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that Joseph Daniel Schmidt, 31, pled guilty in June to attempting to deliver and keep classified material. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour also imposed three years of supervised release.
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Schmidt’s sentencing comes as US officials warn of China’s increasing efforts to recruit or exploit former military individuals with access to sensitive information.
“As a retired Army officer, I find it unconscionable for a former soldier to put his colleagues and country at risk by peddling secret information and intelligence access to a hostile foreign power,” Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said.
Schmidt enlisted in 2015 and served with the Army’s 109th Military Intelligence Battalion until 2020. Prosecutors claimed he had access to both secret and top-secret systems and contacted Chinese consulate authorities after quitting the Army.
According to court records, Schmidt prepared several documents based on secret information and gave them to Chinese security services. He also stored a device that could access protected Army networks, which prosecutors claim he provided to Chinese authorities.
Schmidt visited Hong Kong in March 2020 after leaving the Army and continued to communicate with Chinese contacts. He stayed there for over three years before flying to San Francisco in October 2023, where he was apprehended. He pled guilty in June 2025 and was sentenced on Tuesday in Seattle.
Coughenour stated that he considered “the seriousness of Schmidt’s crime and his mental health at the time.” A DOJ spokeswoman told Fox News Digital that the judge considered Schmidt’s mental health as a mitigating factor during sentencing.
Schmidt’s departure from the Army was the result of a mental health incident, according to the CIA, and no secret material is thought to have reached China.
“The FBI and our partners will remain vigilant in our mission to safeguard our nation,” said W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the Seattle field office.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said Schmidt “created documents based on classified and national defense information. He used his training to provide sensitive information to the Chinese security service. He knew what he was doing was wrong. He was doing web searches for such things as ‘Can you be extradited for treason.’”
The FBI investigated the case with cooperation from the United States Army Counterintelligence Command (USACC).
The FBI’s Seattle Field Office investigated the matter, with assistance from the USACC.
