Today’s reminder of the insider threat, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia:
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A U.S. Department of State (DOS) employee was sentenced today to four years in prison for conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information to individuals he knew to be working for the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“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.”
“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. He will spend years of his life in prison for passing classified information to individuals he believed to be Chinese government agents,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “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.”
“Michael Schena deliberately undermined U.S. national security and put American lives at risk by selling classified information to the Chinese Government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “The Chinese government continues to aggressively target U.S. government employees to steal our classified information, and this sentencing makes clear the FBI and our partners will do everything in our power to defend the Homeland. Anyone thinking of betraying their oath to the United States should consider the severe consequences and know the FBI will work tirelessly to bring them to justice.”
“As a State Department employee, Schena’s mission should have been to promote U.S. security and prosperity throughout the world, but instead he jeopardized national security by transmitting classified information to individuals whom he believed worked for an adversarial government,” said Daniel Wierzbicki, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division. “As today’s sentencing demonstrates, the U.S. government remains committed to investigating and prosecuting clearance holders who seek to cash in on our nation’s secrets.”
According to court documents, beginning in April 2022, Michael Charles Schena, 42, of Alexandria, communicated with people he met online through various communication platforms and provided them sensitive government information in exchange for money. Two of these individuals represented themselves as employees of international consulting companies. Despite clear indications that they were working on behalf of the PRC, Schena continued his relationship with them.
In August 2024, Schena met an individual at a hotel in Peru who provided Schena $10,000 and a cellphone that was intended to be used for Schena to receive taskings and to image and transmit information.
In October 2024, while at work, Schena photographed and transmitted at least four classified documents that contained national defense information and were classified at the SECRET level. In February 2025, surveillance video captured Schena again using the cellphone he received in Peru to photograph seven documents marked as SECRET that contained national defense information. FBI agents seized the cellphone before Schena could transmit photographs of these classified documents to his handlers and was later arrested.
The announcement was made after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff.
The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case with assistance from the FBI Richmond Field Office, the Department of Justice’s Office of Enforcement Operations, and the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service Office of Counterintelligence.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Ben’Ary and Gavin R. Tisdale for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Maria Fedor of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.