Retired Army colonel sentenced for leaking classified military information

A retired U.S. Army colonel who later worked as a civilian employee at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for disclosing classified national defense information, according to prosecutors.

Kevin Charles Luke, 62, of Tampa, was sentenced after pleading guilty on October 7, 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida announced Wednesday.

According to court documents, Luke served on active duty and in the reserves in the U.S. Army from 1981 until his retirement as a colonel on June 30, 2018.

After retiring from the military, he worked as a civilian employee at CENTCOM, the command responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East and parts of Central and South Asia.

During his military service and civilian employment, Luke held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance. Prosecutors said he acknowledged his duty to protect classified information on multiple occasions, including as recently as February 2019, when he signed a nondisclosure agreement.

In October 2024, Luke sent a woman a text message from his personal cellphone that read, “sent to my boss earlier, gives you a peek at what I do for a living.” He then sent her a photograph of a computer screen displaying a classified email message that he had written and sent from a government email account designated for classified communications.

The image showed details of a planned U.S. military operation, including identified targets, the future date of the operation, the method of execution, and the objective, according to prosecutors. The email contained Secret-level classification markings that Luke had added himself.

Authorities said the unauthorized disclosure of the information could be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. national security.

The United States Army Office of Special Investigations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case.