A State Department official was sentenced to four years in prison for selling secrets to the Chinese government, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Michael C. Schena, a desk officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, who held a top-secret clearance, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to provide national defense secrets to a Chinese agent.
“The defendant threw away his career, betrayed his country, and abused the trust the United States placed in him by granting his top-secret security clearance,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement.
“Today’s sentence serves as a warning to those who would violate the trust placed in them by our nation and double-cross the American people,” he said.
The sentencing is the latest in a series of U.S. prosecutions involving Chinese espionage.
Last month, a federal jury convicted Wei Jinchao, an active-duty Navy sailor stationed at Naval Base San Diego, of spying and export violations. Wei had agreed to sell Navy secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000.
FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Roman Rozhavsky said Schena had “deliberately undermined U.S. national security and put American lives at risk by selling classified information to the Chinese government.”
Mr. Rozhavsky said anyone considering betraying the United States should consider the severe consequences.
“This sentencing makes clear the FBI and our partners will do everything in our power to defend the homeland,” he said.
According to court documents in the case, the 42-year-old resident of Alexandria, Virginia, was recruited online by Chinese agents and provided classified documents in exchange for cash.
The agents posed as employees of an international consulting firm and, despite clear signs they were working for the Chinese government, continued a relationship, the Justice Department said.
A court document issued as part of a plea agreement stated that Schena had access to national defense secrets and “conspired with others to willfully transmit SECRET information and documents to persons not entitled to receive them, with reason to believe that the information so transmitted could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation.”
Schena traveled to Peru in August 2024 and was paid $10,000 and provided with an Apple cellphone to be used for sending documents and other tasks for his Chinese handlers.
In October 2024 at the State Department, Schena used the cellphone to photograph and transmit at least four classified documents containing national defense secrets.
He was seen in video surveillance in February using the cell phone to photograph seven documents marked secret.
FBI agents seized the cell phone before Schena could send the classified documents to his handlers and arrested him on Feb. 27.
“The price of Michael Schena’s disgraceful betrayal of his country is far more than the paltry amount for which he traded his honor,” said Erik S. Siebert, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“His acts of selfish avarice left that price to be paid by the faithful women and men of our intelligence community and the nation they serve. The cost Schena will pay is the loss of his integrity, his reputation, and, by today’s sentence, his freedom.”
Schena had held a top secret security clearance since 2006 and was recruited through a social media platform.
On his LinkedIn page, Schena described himself as an experienced foreign affairs officer skilled in
negotiation, analytical skills, government, intelligence, Central Asia and the Caribbean. He said he has a master’s degree in international relations from Louisiana State University.
He spent two months in 2021 as a China desk officer at the State Department.
The posting states he was a Caribbean desk officer since December 2020. Prior positions include a posting to the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and regional refugee officer in Doha, Qatar.
Schena plead guilty June 3 in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to one count of conspiracy to gather, transmit or lose defense information.
He was sentenced by District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff.
A lawyer for Schena did not immediately respond to a request for comment.