A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced on Friday to
one year in prison for illegally taking photos inside restricted areas of a
nuclear submarine and then trying to impede an investigation into the matter,
prosecutors said on Friday.
Kristian Saucier, 29, was sentenced by U.S.
District Judge Stefan Underhill in Bridgeport, Connecticut, after pleading
guilty in May to one criminal count of unauthorized possession and retention of
national defense information.
Prosecutors said Saucier on three occasions
took cellphone photos of classified spaces, instruments and equipment of the
U.S.S. Alexandria, while he was stationed on the submarine in Groton,
Connecticut, as a machinist’s mate.
Authorities launched an investigation in
March 2012 when Saucier’s phone was found at a waste transfer station in
Hampton, Connecticut.
Prosecutors said that after an initial
interview with investigators, Saucier returned home and destroyed a laptop
computer, camera and memory card.
Saucier, a resident of Arlington, Vermont,
was subsequently arrested in May 2015. In court papers, prosecutors sought a
prison term of 5-1/4 years, saying his conduct was “egregious and put at risk
the national security of our nation.”
His lawyer, Derrick Hogan, in court papers
requested a term of probation. They said he never tried to transmit any of the
photographs and took them out of a desire to someday show his family what he
did while he was in the Navy.
Hogan did not respond to a request for
comment.
Saucier, who is currently enlisted in the
Navy as a petty officer first class assigned to the Naval Support Activity Base
in Saratoga Springs, New York, is awaiting an administrative separation board
proceeding, prosecutors said.
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