Career
He is currently serving a prison sentence of 24 years and four months. Boone"s case was an example of a late Cold War United States. government security breach. Boone had worked for the National Security Agency for three years before being reassigned to Augsburg, Germany, in 1988.
He served in Vietnam from 1971–1972 and retired from the Army, as a Sergeant First Class, in 1991.
Turn to espionage
and offered his services. According to an Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence agent"s affidavit, Boone was under "severe financial and personal difficulties" when he began spying.
According to the federal complaint, Boone met with his handler about four times a year from late 1988 until June 1990, when his access to classified information was suspended because of "his lack of personal and professional responsibility." He held a Top Secret clearance from 1971 and gained access to Service Civil International information in 1976. He is alleged to have received payments totaling more than $60,000 from the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security).
Boone was arrested October 10, 1998, at a hotel outside Washington, District of Columbia after being lured from his home in Western Germany to the United States in an Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation.
He was charged with selling Top Secret classified documents to Soviet agents 1988 to 1991, including a 600-page manual describing United States. reconnaissance programs and a listing of nuclear targets in Russia.
Boone was indicted on three counts: one for conspiracy to commit espionage and the other two related to his alleged passing of two Top Secret documents to his Soviet handler. Boone pleaded guilty to conspiracy December 18, and was sentenced 26 February 1999, to 24 years and four months in prison. Under a plea agreement Boone was also required to forfeit $52,000 and a hand-held scanner he used to copy documents.
David Sheldon Boone, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)#43671-083, has a scheduled release of December 20, 2019.
As of June 2015 he is held at Safford FCI.
