Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini, seen here in 2021, was sentenced May 29, 2024, to 18 years in military prison for attempted espionage. (Facebook)
A sailor convicted of attempted espionage was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a military judge on Wednesday.
Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini, formerly a fire controlman aboard the Japan-based guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins, also received a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to seaman recruit, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service announced in a next-day news release.
“This sentence holds Mr. Pedicini to account for his betrayal of his country and fellow service members,” NCIS director Omar Lopez said in the release. “The criminal act by this lone individual should not diminish the incredible sacrifices made by our service members and their families on a daily basis to protect our nation.”
Pedicini’s sentencing comes more than a month after his April 19 court-martial conviction in San Diego, where he was found guilty of attempted espionage, failure to obey a lawful order and attempted violation of a lawful general order.
He was initially charged with violating Article 103a of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which covers espionage and attempted espionage. The charges included seven specifications of espionage and one of attempted espionage, according to his charge sheet.
NCIS spokesman Jeff Houston declined to comment on why Pedicini was convicted of attempted espionage over espionage, in an April 22 email to Stars and Stripes.
Pedicini pleaded guilty to a charge related to taking a personal phone into a secure room but contested the other charges, San Diego’s ABC 10 News reported April 16.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins departs Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, on May 16, 2024. (James Kimber/U.S. Navy)
The sentence will take effect following an appeal of the judge’s dismissal of another charge — communication of defense information — but that appeal is unlikely to affect the sentence, NCIS said in Thursday’s release.
Between November 2022 and February 2023, Pedicini transmitted at least seven documents to a foreign agent via Facebook Messenger, the encrypted messaging service Telegram and other electronic means, according to court records provided by the Office of the Judge Advocate General.
In May 2023, he sent photographs of material accessed through a computer screen connected to a Defense Department network used to transmit classified information.
Court records show that a person identified only as a “citizen and employee of a foreign government” first contacted Pedicini through Messenger on Oct. 24, 2022, offering money for details about U.S. military “capabilities and strategies in the region.”
ABC 10 News identified that individual as a woman in an April 11 report citing prosecutor Leah O’Brien’s court statements.
As a fire controlman, Pedicini worked with ““everything from radars, fire control systems and computer systems to the Navy’s most advanced missile system, Aegis,” which is used aboard guided-missile destroyers and cruisers, according to the Navy’s description of the job.
The woman convinced Pedicini to send classified information on a ballistic missile system and documents that outlined Chinese and Russian threats, O’Brien said at the court-martial.
Pedicini first received $50 for filling out a survey and later $1,000 for initial documents.
The woman offered him more money “based on the value and sensitivity of the information” and specifically asked for classified information, according to court records.
Posing as a researcher is a tactic “increasingly used by foreign adversaries” to obtain national defense information, NCIS said in Thursday’s release.
Pedicini, who has remained in pre-trial confinement since being detained by NCIS on May 19, 2023, will serve his sentence at a military prison, according to NCIS.
