'He made me dream about the smiling future, but I did not know that it was all lies and that he was just taking advantage of me to reach his goals.

'I needed love and when I found this person, he promised me a good life with great love,' she wrote. In her letter to the judge, she wrote that she figured she was getting old, with no one to hold her when she cried or to warm her with love and care. Thompson, who had developed a romantic interest in the person, learned that the 'unindicted co-conspirator' had a family member who was in the Lebanese Ministry of the Interior. in 1990, and became a citizen in 1993.Īs part of the plea, Thompson admitted that beginning in 2017, she communicated with a person using a video-chat feature on a secure text and voice-messaging application. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon, immigrated to the U.S.

Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. military facility and was given 'top-secret government security clearance,' according to a news release from the U.S. She had been working as a contract linguist at a U.S. Thompson was arrested in winter 2020 in Iraq. I am not proud of what I have done, and am filled with sadness and regret for what happened,' she wrote in a letter addressed to Bates. 'I fully accept responsibility for my actions. She was active in local business networking groups, and sold cookies at a booth at the early Rochester Downtown Alliance's Thursdays on First and Third Street festivals. military in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, Thompson ran a business in Rochester for years called Mary’s Cleaning Service. “By knowingly distributing classified information that would be passed onto a designated foreign terrorist organization, Mariam Thompson put our national defense in danger.'ĭespite a lengthy career as a linguist for the U.S. Kohler Jr., of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, said in a statement.

“This case should serve as a clear reminder to all of those entrusted with national defense information that unilaterally disclosing such information for personal gain, or that of others, is not selfless or heroic it is criminal,” Assistant Director Alan E. Two other charges, conspiracy to deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government and willful retention of national defense information, were dismissed. District Court in March 2021 to the charge. military personnel and human assets’ work with the United States and accordingly posed a significant threat to national security,” he said, according to the Post. “There is no question in my mind that the offense conduct to which the defendant admitted endangered U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.įormer Rochester woman pleads not guilty to espionage charges Bates as describing her as a sympathetic individual with an otherwise inspiring life story who served her adopted country alongside U.S. Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, formerly of Rochester, was sentenced Wednesday, June 23, to 23 years in prison for delivering classified national defense information to aid a foreign government. A former Rochester woman was sentenced to more than two decades in federal prison after admitting that she passed classified national defense information to a person she believed would be providing it to Lebanese Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Mariam thompson linguist