Former Federal IT Contractor Pleads Guilty to Spying for Ethiopia

WASHINGTON, DC, Nov. 3, 2026 — A former information technology contractor at three federal agencies pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to commit espionage for Ethiopia's government, the Justice Department said.

Abraham Teklu Lemma of Maryland, a former contractor at the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Justice, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transmit national defense information to a foreign government. Under his plea agreement, if the court accepts it, he has agreed to be incarcerated for between 120 and 262 months. Sentencing is set for April 14, 2027.

What prosecutors say happened: According to court documents cited by the department, Lemma held a Top Secret security clearance. From 2021 until his arrest in August 2023, he conspired with senior Ethiopian government officials to collect and transmit "dozens of highly classified documents, notes, materials, and photographs," classified up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level. Much of it concerned an armed conflict in Ethiopia.

The department says Lemma wrote classified information in handwritten notes and carried them out of secure facilities, and, as an IT administrator, removed electronic copies of classified information from government repositories. On Dec. 18, 2021, it says, he told one conspirator, "We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia," and later that day wrote, "Please send Dro[nes]."

"Lemma betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. "Those who betray this trust will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

The FBI's Washington Field Office investigated, and the FBI shared the case on X Tuesday.

The court will decide on the sentence in April.

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs release, Nov. 3, 2026; FBI post on X.

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