Former Air Force contractor sentenced for taking classified information

A former Air Force contractor was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for his role in taking an estimated 2,500 pages of classified information while working for the Air Force between 2016 and 2019.

Izaak Vincent Kemp, 36, of Fairborn, Ohio, was charged in January and pleaded guilty in February to unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office release.

He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Walter Rice to one year and one day in federal prison.

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Kemp worked as a contractor at the Air Force Research Laboratory from July 2016 to May 2019, according to court documents. After that he worked at the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center. Both organizations are at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Fairborn, Ohio.

Kemp had a top secret security clearance while employed with the Air Force.

On May 25, 2019, the 36-year-old awoke to at least 10 agents in tactical gear in his house, with an armored vehicle outside and drones flying overhead, according to court documents.

Those agents found more than 100 documents, containing an estimated 2,500 pages of material classified at the secret level, according to the release.

“Despite having training on various occasions on how to safeguard classified material, Kemp took 112 classified documents and retained them at his home,” acting U.S. Attorney Vipal J. Patel’s Office said in a statement.

Kemp’s attorney argued in the sentencing deliberations that his client didn’t take the documents to undermine national security, made no profit from taking the documents and did not share them with any “entity with adverse interests to the United States of America,” according to court documents.