The Justice Department on Thursday announced the indictment of the U.S. Army’s first transgender officer and his wife for trying to provide confidential health records to a person they believed was a Russian agent for Russia to exploit.
A federal grand jury charged Army Maj. Jamie Lee Henry, 39, and his wife, Anna Gabrielian, 36, of Rockville, Maryland, with eight counts of conspiracy and for the disclosure of individually identifiable health information (IIHI) in an effort to help Russia in the war against Ukraine.
Henry is an Army doctor who holds a Secret-level security clearance, while Gabrielian is an anesthesiologist who worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
During the time of the alleged conspiracy, Henry was a staff internist at Fort Bragg, which is home to the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, headquarters of the United States Army Special Operations Command, and the Womack Army Medical Center.
The indictment alleges that Henry and Gabrielian, beginning on August 17, 2022, tried to provide a person they believed to be a Russian agent the health records in order to prove their access to the personal records of troops and other patients and their willingness to provide it, as well as the potential of the information’s worth to the Russian government that could use it to exploit in its war against Ukraine.
The person they were meeting with was actually an FBI undercover agent. Gabrielian told the agent she had previously reached out to the Russian embassy by email and phone, offering Russia her and her husband’s assistance. During the meeting on August 17 Gabrielian told the agent she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail.
Gabrielian also told the agent that Henry, as a military officer, was a more important source for Russia than she was, because he had more helpful information, such as how the United States military establishes an army hospital in war conditions and information about previous training provided by the United States military to Ukrainian military personnel. Later that evening, Henry joined the meeting. He told the agent he was committed to assisting Russia and had looked into volunteering to join the Russian Army after the conflict in Ukraine began.
According to the indictment, Henry had said, “My point of view is until the United States actually declares war against Russia, I’m able to help as much as I want. … At that point, I’ll have some ethical issues I’ll have to work through.”
On August 31 Gabrielian and Henry allegedly met the agent at a hotel room in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and both provided health records, including for a spouse of an employee of the Office of Naval Intelligence, and for five individuals who were military veterans or related to military veterans.
Henry and Gabrielian face a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy, and a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each count of disclosing IIHI.
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