SEPTEMBER 29, 2022
Maj. Jamie Lee Henry. (MSNBC)
The Justice Department on Thursday accused an Army doctor and a Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist of conspiring to provide the Russian government with medical information about U.S. soldiers and their relatives.
The indictment names Jamie Lee Henry, an Army major at Fort Bragg who had a secret security clearance, and Henry’s spouse, Anna Gabrielian, a Russian-speaker who is affiliated with Johns Hopkins, according to a Hopkins webpage.
They are charged with offering sensitive information to an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a representative of the Russian Embassy.
The indictment says the FBI learned that Gabrielian had volunteered assistance to Russia through its embassy in Washington.
During an Aug. 17 meeting in a Baltimore hotel room, Gabrielian told the undercover FBI 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,” the indictment alleges.
Gabrielian told the agent that she had reached out to the Russian Embassy by email and phone, offering Russia assistance from both her and her spouse, Henry, the indictment says.
She told the agent that although Henry knew she was reaching out to the Russian Embassy on both their behalf, she did not mention Henry’s name in her interactions with the Russian Embassy, and so Henry could claim lack of awareness.
The indictment refers to Henry as male, but Henry in 2015 went public as the first openly transgender Army officer. Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, said Henry referred to himself as a male in interactions with the undercover FBI agent.
Later on Aug. 17, Gabrielian and Henry met with the undercover agent, the indictment says. According to the indictment, Henry described a commitment to assisting Russia and had looked into volunteering to join the Russian army after the conflict in Ukraine began, but Russia wanted people with combat experience and Henry did not have any. The indictment says Henry added, “the way I am viewing what is going on in Ukraine now, is that the United States is using Ukrainians as a proxy for their own hatred toward Russia.”
On Aug. 31, according to the indictment, the FBI agent met Gabrielian and Henry at a hotel in Gaithersburg, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.
Gabrielian gave the agent medical information about the spouse of a person employed by the Office of Naval Intelligence — and highlighted a medical issue that Russia could exploit, the indictment says.
Henry allegedly provided information on at least five individuals who were patients at Fort Bragg, including a retired Army officer, a current Department of Defense employee, the spouse of a U.S. Army veteran, and two spouses of deceased U.S. Army veterans.
Court records say Gabrielian and Henry have been arrested — it was unclear whether they have lawyers.
The defendants face a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison on the conspiracy charge and a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each count of disclosing health information.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Johns Hopkins Medicine said, “We were shocked to learn about this news this morning and intend to fully cooperate with investigators.”
