The guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) is photographed in the South China Sea July 28, 2022.
Christopher Bosch/US Navy
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Christopher Bosch/US Navy
The guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) is photographed in the South China Sea July 28, 2022.
Christopher Bosch/US Navy
A military court found a US Navy sailor – who previously served on a guided missile destroyer based in Japan – guilty of sharing classified defense information with a “representative of a foreign government,” according to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini was convicted Friday of attempted espionage, failure to obey a lawful order and attempted violation of a lawful general order.
“This guilty verdict holds Mr. Pedicini accountable for his betrayal of his country and his fellow service members,” NCIS Director Omar Lopez said in a statement. NCIS is a branch of the Navy responsible for investigations and counterintelligence.
NPR contacted the Navy Judge Advocate General’s office for comment from Pedicini’s attorney.
NCIS arrested Pedicini on May 19, 2023, after its investigators discovered that he shared “classified and national defense information” with a foreign agent between November 2022 and February 2023, NCIS said. Days before his arrest, Pedicini attempted to share photos from his computer screen aboard the Japanese destroyer USS Higgins with his contact, according to charging documents.
The charging filing does not list the foreign state or the type of information shared. Pedicini “had reason to believe that doing so would be detrimental to the United States or advantageous to the foreign nation,” NCIS said. In total, Pedicini gave classified information to a citizen or employee of a foreign government at least six times, according to charging documents.
The foreign government representative received information from Pedicini “under the guise of writing research papers.” According to NCIS, this is an increasingly common tactic for sharing classified information with unauthorized eyes.
“The United States’ adversaries are relentlessly trying to degrade our military superiority,” Lopez said.
A military judge will sentence Pedicini on May 7.
Pedicini is a native of Nashville, Tennessee, and joined the United States Navy after graduating from Christ Presbyterian Academy in 2007.
Prior to his service on the USS Higgins, Pedicini worked on the USS Curtis Wilbur – a Japan-based guided-missile destroyer – as a fire controller, according to a 2018 Navy Office of Community Outreach blog post. In this role, Pedicini oversaw the operation and maintenance of missile systems, gun fire control systems, and computer systems.
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