Former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for stealing classified information from the Department of Defense and sharing it online, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts announced.

Teixeira’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Teixeira apologized. depending on audience coverage in United States District Court by NBC affiliate WJAR of Providence, Rhode Island.

“All the responsibility falls on my shoulders,” Teixeira said. “And I accept what that may bring.”

U.S. prosecutors argued for a sentence of 200 months, or about 17 years, the maximum under an agreement between Teixeira and federal prosecutors.

Judge Indira Talwani noted that the document leak came after extensive training that covered the consequences of the leaks and after Teixeira was warned about the way he handled classified material, according to WJAR.

“Despite that, you posted hundreds of documents on the Internet over a year,” he said.

Teixeira’s attorneys argued for a sentence at the lower end of the range, noting that the maximum of 200 months would be more than the government was seeking. Julian Assangeaccused of publishing a trove of classified documents.

They argued that Teixeira’s autism and isolation during the pandemic contributed to his behavior.

In March, Teixeira pleaded guilty to six charges intentional retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. The statement was part of the agreement, which included a recommended sentence of 11 to 17 years. he was arrested by the fbi in North Dighton, Massachusetts, in April 2023 and has been in federal custody since mid-May 2023.

After Tuesday’s sentencing, Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, described Teixeira as “one of the most prolific leakers of classified information in American history.”

Cohen said at a post-sentencing news conference that Teixeira put classified information online almost every day for more than a year. “He conveyed it to our adversaries and allies around the world,” he said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said Teixeira’s crimes put U.S. personnel abroad at mortal risk and damaged relationships with allies and may have revealed some of the ways the country gathers such material.

“He leaked information that the government determined was likely to cause serious harm to the United States,” he said at the news conference.

Among the documents on display was information on troop movements, he said.

According to court documents, Teixeira transcribed classified documents that he then shared on Discord, a social media platform used primarily by online gamers. He began sharing the documents around 2022, in part to impress his peers on the platform, prosecutors alleged.

One document he was accused of leaking included information about supplying equipment to Ukraine, while another included discussions about a foreign adversary’s plot to attack U.S. forces abroad, prosecutors said.

Teixeira entered the Air National Guard in 2019 and was an Airman First Class. He was based at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing as a cyber transportation systems officer.

He was able to access the documents because he had a top-secret security clearance since approximately July 2021 and had received training in the definition of classified information, classification levels and proper handling of the material, according to the indictment.

While the documents were discovered online in March 2023, Teixeira had been sharing them online for more than a year, prosecutors said.

Levy said the ruling could serve as a warning to anyone considering such a leak. “The judge recognized the seriousness of this conduct and the lasting nature of the damage,” he said.

While the ruling closed a chapter in the case, Levy argued that the debris caused by the defendant will continue to resonate.

“We won’t know the full extent of Jack Teixeira’s damage for several years,” he said.