Former Army Green Beret Sentenced for Russian Espionage Conspiracy Published: 15 May 2021 15 May 2021
Washington, DC - A Virginia man and former Army Green Beret was sentenced yesterday to 188 months in prison for conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to provide them with U.S. national defense information.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 46, of Gainesville, admitted to conspiring with agents of a Russian intelligence service. According to court documents, from December 1996 to January 2011, Debbins periodically visited Russia and met with Russian intelligence agents. In 1997, Debbins was assigned a code name by Russian intelligence agents and signed a statement attesting that he wanted to serve Russia.
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15 years in prison for former US Green Beret who spied for Russia
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, admitted providing national security information to Russian intelligence operatives AFP/MARK WILSON
15 May 2021 03:40AM Share this content
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WASHINGTON: A former officer in the US Army s elite Special Forces unit the Green Berets was sentenced to 15 and a half years in prison on Friday for spying for Russia.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 46, pleaded guilty in November to providing national security information to Russian intelligence operatives.
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Debbins was sentenced to 188 months in prison on Friday by US District Court Judge Claude Hilton of the Eastern District of Virginia.
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A former Army Green Beret was sentenced to more than 15 years behind bars on Friday for spying for Russian military intelligence, with the judge handing down the decision nearly half a year after he’d pleaded guilty to handing over classified information, including details about his unit deployed on the Russian border.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 46, was accused by federal prosecutors last summer of passing information to members of Russian intelligence, including the notorious Main Intelligence Directorate known as the GRU, from December 1996 to January 2011, during which he told Russian intelligence he considered himself a “son of Russia” and was assigned the code name “Ikar Lesnikov.”