Sailor charged with attempted espionage is held in Norfolk

Staff and wire reports

NORFOLK

A U.S. Navy sailor serving at Fort Bragg was charged Thursday with attempting to sell classified documents.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Bryan Minkyu Martin, 22, of New York, was charged with attempting to forward classified information to a person not authorized to receive such information, a news release from the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic public affairs office said. A court-martial date has not been set, but legal proceedings will take place at the Region Legal Service Office at Norfolk Naval Station.

Martin, an intelligence specialist, was arrested in December while he was assigned to the Expeditionary Combat Readiness Center at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story in Virginia Beach. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in support of the Army and had been undergoing training at Fort Bragg in preparation for that deployment.

According to a warrant filed in Eastern District Court in North Carolina, Martin accepted a total of $3,500 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for dozens of pages of documents that were classified either secret or top secret.

In the initial Nov. 15 meeting with the undercover agent, at a Hampton Inn near Fort Bragg, Martin told the agent his current assignment focused on Afghanistan, and that he would one day work for the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the warrant.

"Martin stated that over his prospective 15 to 20 year career, he could be very valuable," the warrant says.

Martin was paid $500, along with the promise of more money in exchange for secret documents, according to the warrant. At two subsequent meetings, Martin handed over documents in exchange for two payments of $1,500 in cash, for which he signed a receipt using a code name, the warrant says.

Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said investigators were confident no classified information was actually delivered to anyone not authorized to see it.

He was arrested Dec. 1 in Fayetteville, N.C. According to court documents, investigators seized a laptop computer, a digital audio recorder, a cell phone and unspecified file folders from the hotel on Fort Bragg where Martin was living.

Martin enlisted in the Navy in 2006 and received a top-secret-level security clearance the following year. Before coming to Fort Bragg in September, he was stationed at military facilities in Syracuse, N.Y., Jackson, S.C., San Diego and Washington, D.C.

While he's been held in the brig at Norfolk Naval Station, he has advanced from a petty officer 3rd class to petty officer 2nd class.

Pilot staff writer Lauren King and the Associated Press contributed to this story.