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The Massachusetts airman accused of leaking highly classified U.S. intelligence documents is asking a magistrate judge to release him from pretrial detention on the „least restrictive conditions,“ accusing the government of engaging in „hyperbolic judgments“ and denying he poses a risk of flight or obstructing justice in his case.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, will appear at a detention hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday in Worcester, Massachusetts. The federal magistrate judge assigned to the case, David Hennessy, will hear arguments about whether Teixeira should be kept in federal custody ahead of his trial.
Teixeira’s public defender argued in a new filing that even if the magistrate judge finds he poses a risk of flight or obstruction, Teixeira should still be permitted to remain out of pretrial detention in the custody of his father or confined to a home with the presence of either his father, mother, stepfather, Air Force personnel or his lawyers.
Teixeira’s lawyer, Allen Franco, also suggested that Teixeira could have restrictions imposed on him like location monitoring, barring him from accessing the internet or contacting any potential witnesses in the case and bond that could be secured by both his parents‘ homes.
The filing further disputed that Teixeira poses a flight risk by pointing to how, when he became aware of his impending arrest, he sat on his mother’s porch and read a Bible as he waited for law enforcement to arrive.
