The same night a U.S. Army officer filmed himself deleting Army training materials while he was being discharged from the military, he called the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., according to federal prosecutors.
In the video Manfredo Martin-Michael Madrigal III recorded in February 2022, he was “graphically describing his ill-will towards the Army,” prosecutors said.
Madrigal, 38, pleaded guilty on July 24 to one count of destruction of U.S. Army materials and three counts of making a false statement, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia.
The charges stem from when Madrigal’s discharge from the Army was pending and he was assigned as an attorney to the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School ( JAG School) in Charlottesville, prosecutors said.
“The case began as a national security espionage ‘suspicion,’” Madrigal’s defense attorney, John N. Maher, told McClatchy News in an emailed statement on July 25.
“What the facts truly prove is that First Lieutenant Madrigal distinguished himself as an 82nd Airborne Paratrooper and a senior non-commissioned officer with the 75th Ranger Regiment, having conducted onerous and life threatening missions our country asked him to perform,” Maher said.
By early February 2022, the Army was in the process of discharging Madrigal because he never reported a prior conviction for driving under the influence, according to prosecutors. At the time, his job was to create training materials for the JAG Corps and Army, prosecutors said.
An investigation revealed that Madrigal deleted JAG School training materials related to national security without permission — and sent a video of himself doing so in a text message to a woman, according to an affidavit written by an FBI agent.
In the recording, Madrigal expressed bitterness toward the Army, making several expletive statements, the affidavit says.
“You thought you could easily remove me?” Madrigal said in part of the video, according to the affidavit.
Call to Russian Embassy
In another text message and voicemail to the woman who received the video, Madrigal mentioned Russia, saying, “Ya, Russia has reached out to me” and that he made plans to travel to the country, the affidavit says.
Days before his discharge from the Army on Feb. 22, 2022, Madrigal messaged the woman again, saying: “The Russians in DC reached out to me, they would like to know what I know,” according to the affidavit.
However, Madrigal’s phone records showed no Russian representative called him, the affidavit says.
Instead, the records showed he called the Russian Embassy in D.C. the day he deleted JAG School training modules, according to the criminal complaint, which says his call lasted about 2 minutes and 26 seconds.
Lying to the FBI
As an Army officer, Madrigal had an active security clearance and “served overseas on sensitive operations” before working at the JAG School, prosecutors said.
He lied on his exit paperwork during his Army discharge, claiming he “had no unreported contact with a foreign national,” according to prosecutors.
A few months later, Madrigal lied to the FBI, saying he never deleted Army training materials and he never spoke with a foreign national at the Russian Embassy, prosecutors said.
According to Maher, Madrigal’s “offenses” occurred while he was struggling with chronic PTSD, which he developed from “close quarter combat” during his military service, and was “drinking to excess.”
Madrigal was initially arrested on a cyberstalking charge in August 2022, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
FBI agents learned Madrigal had been threatening the woman who received the video of him deleting Army training materials, prosecutors said in an earlier release. She was Madrigal’s former romantic partner, according to prosecutors.
Madrigal messaged her between late 2021 and throughout the middle of 2022, “threatening her career, family, and pets,” and sent sexually explicit photos of her that she didn’t know he had, prosecutors said.
The woman reported he also threatened her with a gun and damaged her items, according to prosecutors.
Madrigal threatened a second woman, another former romantic partner, with a pistol and pointed it at her head in August 2022, prosecutors said.
He pressured this woman give the FBI false information about him, according to prosecutors.
Since Madrigal agreed to plead guilty to charges related to deleting JAG School materials and lying to the FBI, the cyberstalking charge and other counts against him will be dismissed after his sentencing, his plea agreement shows.
Madrigal is considered a disabled veteran and “has been dry for two years,” Maher told McClatchy News.
He said Madrigal is “a wounded warrior who is no danger to anybody and is now on the mend to continue to contribute positively to our neighbors and our country.”
The date of Madrigal’s sentencing wasn’t listed in court records.
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