Former CIA official pleads guilty to acting as a foreign agent and mishandling classified materials

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A Florida man pled guilty today to, while being a public official at the CIA, acting as a foreign agent required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and removing classified material, classified up to the SECRET//NOFORN level, from authorized locations without authority and with the intent to retain such material at an unauthorized location.

According to court documents, in 2014, Dale Britt Bendler, 68, of Miami, began working as a full-time contractor at the CIA with a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance. Before he was a CIA contractor, Bendler spent over 30 years working for the CIA as an intelligence officer and retired as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service in 2014. Beginning in July 2017 and continuing through at least July 2020, while a full-time CIA contractor and TS/SCI clearance holder, Bendler worked with a U.S. lobbying firm and engaged in unauthorized and hidden lobbying and public relations activities on behalf of foreign national clients. As described in the plea agreement, Bendler’s undisclosed lobbying activities included an attempt to use his position and access at the CIA to influence a foreign government’s embezzlement investigation of one of Bendler’s foreign national clients and a separate attempt to use his position and access at the CIA to influence the U.S. government’s decision as to whether to grant a U.S. visa to another of Bendler’s clients, who was alleged to be associated with terrorism financing. In exchange for his unauthorized outside activities, Bendler was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

During the course of Bendler’s unauthorized lobbying and public relations activities, Bendler also abused his access to CIA resources and personnel by, among other things, searching classified CIA systems for any information related to his private lobbying clients, improperly storing and disclosing non-public, sensitive, and classified U.S. government information to people not authorized to receive such information, and lying to the CIA and the FBI about his status as a foreign agent and his unauthorized lobbying and public relations activities. The CIA terminated Bendler’s contract and access in September 2020.

In addition to pleading guilty, Bendler consented to the forfeiture of $85,000. Bendler is scheduled to be sentenced on July 16 and faces up to seven years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Erik S. Siebert, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Sue Bai, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division; and Steven J. Jensen, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. accepted the plea.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg for the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Adam P. Barry and Senior Trial Attorney Heather M. Schmidt of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.  Chief Jennifer K. Gellie of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section provided substantial assistance in this investigation in her prior role as a trial attorney.

A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information are located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 1:25-cr-109.