A Pentagon analyst previously accused of leaking top-secret information to a pro-Israel group was charged Tuesday with illegally taking classified government documents out of the Washington area to his West Virginia residence.
Lawrence Anthony Franklin, 58, was not authorized to take such documents to his home in Kearneysville, according to the federal charge issued along with an arrest warrant by U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Johnston in Martinsburg.
The FBI found 83 classified documents in Franklin's home in the Eastern Panhandle town in June 2004, the documents said. Investigators say 38 of those documents were top secret and 37 others were classified as secret.
Tuesday's charge of unlawfully possessing classified federal defense documents focuses on six of the documents, which were written between October 2003 and June 2004. Four were CIA documents, including three about al-Qaida and one involving Osama bin Laden. Two of those documents were classified top secret, the rest as secret.
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