Army's first transgender officer charged with attempting to give U.S. records to Russia

The Army’s first transgender officer and his wife, who are both doctors, were indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday for attempting to turn over stolen, confidential medical information to Russia in a effort to support their invasion of Ukraine.

Major Jamie Lee Henry was granted a request to officially change his name in accordance to his gender preference in 2015. Prior to Henry’s case, identifying as a sex different than the one on one’s birth certificate made a soldier unfit for military service, warranting discharge, according to the National Review.

According to a Justice Department press release, Henry holds a Secret-level security clearance and worked as a staff internist stationed at Fort Bragg, the home of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, headquarters of the United States Army Special Operations Command, and the Womack Army Medical Center.

His wife, Anna Gabrielian, worked as an anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins school of medicine, referred to as “Medical Institution 1” in the indictment, located in Baltimore, Maryland. The couple reside in nearby Rockville, about 15 miles north of Washington DC.

The eight-count indictment accuses Gabrielian and Henry of conspiring to cause harm to the United States by providing confidential health information of Americans connected with the U.S. government and military from their workplaces to Russia.

It outlines a specific incident in August where authorities allege the pair stole medical records from Fort Bragg and Johns Hopkins and gave it to an individual they believed to be working with the Russian government. The goal was to demonstrate their access to individually identifiable health information, or IIHI, and willingness to provide it to the government.

However, the individual they were meeting with was an undercover agent, or UC, for the FBI. Gabrielian met with the UC first, saying she was motivated by “patriotism toward Russia” to provide any assistance she could, even if it meant being fired or going to jail, and offered to connect the agent to her husband – a more important source because of his position in the U.S. army and security clearance.

Gabriellian and Henry met with the UC multiple times to discuss their commitment to the cause and the type of private information they could provide. At one meeting, Henry said he had looked into enlisting in the Russian army but was disqualified due to his lack of “combat experience.”

“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,” Henry added.

At their final meeting, the pair provided multiple medical records to the FBI agent, including one on the spouse of an employee of the Office of Naval Intelligence that Gabrielian pointed out had a medical condition Russia could “exploit.”

Grabriellian and Henry each face a maximum of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy and a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each count of disclosing IIHI, if convicted.