Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner was sentenced to more than five years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to leaking a classified report with information about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election.
The former Air Force linguist, 26, was sentenced to 63 months in prison also received an additional three years of supervised release in court. The sentencing comes after Winner was arrested in June 2017 and charged under the Espionage Act with removing classified material from a government building and sending it to a news outlet, Fox News reported.
After being held for over a year, Winner pleaded guilty in June. Winner’s prison sentence will be the “longest” ever served by a federal employee in a case involving leaks to the media, according to prosecutors. However, Winner’s defense team was reportedly fine with the sentencing agreement, calling it “fair.” (RELATED: Prosecutors: Reality Winner Faces ‘Longest’ Sentence Ever Imposed For Media Leak)
Winner, whose social media accounts show she has negative views towards President Donald Trump and his policies, publicly supported socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and the Women’s March and has said controversial comments, such as, “I only say I hate America like 3 times a day,” in a Facebook message to her sister.
Winner apologized in court Thursday and recognized that what she did was illegal.
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