Ex-JBLM sergeant gave national secrets to China. Now he faces years in prison

A former Joint Base Lewis-McChord sergeant was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison and three years of supervised release after providing sensitive national security information to Chinese intelligence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported.

The former soldier, 39-year-old Joseph Daniel Schmidt, pleaded guilty in June to two federal felonies: attempting to deliver national defense information and willingly retaining national defense information, according to a news release. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said his sentencing decision was based on the gravity of Schmidt’s crimes and his mental health state at the time of his conduct, the release said.

Schmidt was an active-duty soldier from January 2015 to January 2020, according to case records. In his primary assignment at the JBLM’s 109th Military Intelligence Battalion he had access to “top secret information.”

After leaving the military due to a mental health episode, he contacted the Chinese Consulate in Turkey and later sent an email offering national defense information to Chinese security services, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

His efforts to share classified information continued when he traveled to Hong Kong in March 2020. He came prepared, offering multiple long documents containing “high level secrets” and a device allowing access to secured military computer networks, according to the news release.

The Chinese government gave him a work visa just 17 days after he first contacted their intelligence services. He then stayed in China for three years until he was arrested after a flight to San Francisco in October 2023.

“He knew what he was doing was wrong,” assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said during the sentencing. “He was doing web searches for such things as, ‘Can you be extradited for treason.’”