A US army major doctor and her wife, a civilian doctor, have been charged with a plot to leak information to the Russian government.
Jamie Lee Henry and Anna Gabrielian are accused of planning to share confidential information about patients at a military hospital.
The pair allegedly told an undercover FBI agent that they were motivated by patriotism for Russia.
Representatives of the couple have not yet commented on the case.
The pair were charged with conspiracy and the disclosure of identifiable health information, in an indictment filed in a court in Maryland, Baltimore, which was unsealed on Thursday.
Prosecutors said the couple wanted to help the Russian government “gain insights into the medical conditions of individuals associated with the US government and military”.
Maj Henry worked at Fort Bragg, a large military base in North Carolina. The indictment states that she planned to use her security clearance to gain access to private medical records from the hospital at Fort Bragg and another unidentified medical institution.
Dr Gabrielian worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
She allegedly offered help to the Russian embassy in Washington several months ago, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In mid-August she was approached by a person claiming to work for the Russian embassy, who was in reality an FBI agent.
During the meeting, the indictment says she told the agent that “she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail”.
She is accused of offering to bring her wife into the plot, and telling the agent that she had access to medical information at the base and insight on how the US was training the military to provide assistance to Ukraine.
At another meeting later on the same day, Maj Henry allegedly told the agent that she was also committed to Russia, and considered volunteering to join the Russian army.
She apparently said she had reservations about violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which is what the couple have been charged with.
But Dr Gabrielian allegedly had no such concerns, and handed over some information later in August.
Maj Henry was the first known active-duty US Army officer to come out as transgender, after the army granted her permission to officially change her name and gender in 2015, the same year the couple were married.
