State Department employee took ‘Top Secret’ defense documents home, feds say
A State Department employee planned to leave the country the day federal investigators searched his Virginia home and found thousands of pages of classified documents, court documents say.
Ashley Tellis, 64, is accused of taking documents marked as “Secret” or “Top Secret” from the Mark Center, a Department of Defense facility in Alexandria and bringing them to his home in Vienna on Oct. 10, according to an affidavit written by an FBI special agent.
He was arrested this weekend on a charge of unlawful retention of national defense information, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in an Oct. 14 news release.
Tellis works as an unpaid State Department adviser, as well as a contractor in the Office of Net Assessment for the Defense Department, the affidavit says. In his Defense Department position, he specializes in India and South Asian affairs. He is also a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In an emailed statement to McClatchy News on Oct. 15, Tellis’ defense attorneys, Deborah Curtis and John Nassikas, said “Ashley J. Tellis is a widely respected scholar and senior policy advisor.”
“At the next court hearing in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday and in our related filings on Monday, we will be vigorously contesting the allegations brought against him, specifically any insinuation of his operating on behalf of a foreign adversary,” Curtis and Nassikas added.
According to investigators, Tellis has a Top Secret security clearance and has access to Sensitive Compartmented Information, which is related to “intelligence sources, methods, and analytical processes.”
On Sept. 12, surveillance footage captured Tellis having a co-worker print classified documents for him while inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information facility at the Mark Center, the affidavit says.
Nearly two weeks later, on Sept. 25, Tellis accessed a U.S. secret Air Force document about military tactics and procedures while inside the Harry S. Truman Building, the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to the affidavit.
He printed several pages of that document, the affidavit says.
He also fully printed two other U.S. Air Force Weapons School documents related to aircraft capabilities, then left the building with a briefcase, according to the affidavit.
On Oct. 10, he was seen removing several classified documents from the Mark Center and going home with his briefcase, in which he stored the documents, the affidavit says.
Investigators executed a search warrant at Tellis’ home the next day and found classified documents inside two locked filing cabinets, near a desk in his home office in the basement and inside three trash bags in a storage room in the basement, according to the affidavit.
That evening, Tellis had a flight scheduled for Italy, the affidavit says. He planned to visit Italy for about two weeks with his family and was going to attend a “work engagement” in the country, according to investigators.
In the affidavit, the FBI special agent also detailed meetings Tellis had with government officials of the People’s Republic of China within the past few years. During the most recent meeting, on Sept. 2, investigators say Tellis had dinner with PRC officials in Fairfax.
He is accused of receiving a red gift bag from the officials toward the end of their meeting.
“The charges as alleged in this case represent a grave risk to the safety and security of our citizens,” Lindsey Halligan, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.
Halligan, formerly President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, replaced U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, who resigned in September, Axios reported.
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 1:20 PM.
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