Sailor Gets Prison in Classified-Data Case

A chief petty officer at the Navy’s Point Loma submarine base was sentenced Tuesday to four years and one month in prison for mishandling classified materials while he was photography chief on the La Jolla, a nuclear submarine based in San Diego.

Chief Petty Officer David Fleming, 35, also was demoted to the lowest rank of E-1 and dishonorably discharged from the Navy.

Fleming was found guilty Monday at a court-martial on charges of improperly safeguarding classified information, dereliction of duty, destruction of Navy property to prevent seizure, larceny of Navy property, willfully retaining classified material, directing and soliciting his wife to destroy classified material and wrongfully retaining it in their residence, according to Lt. Sonja Hedley, a spokeswoman for the submarine base.

Navy investigators found the material, including photographs and training documents, last fall when they searched Fleming’s home as well as a residence he had previously occupied.

In his defense, Fleming told the six-member court-martial panel that it was not unusual for sailors with his responsibilities to take their work home because of cramped conditions on submarines.

Fleming was not accused of any espionage-related charges and there was no evidence that he intended to leak or sell information to anyone, Hedley said.