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Former Kansas City FBI analyst admits to taking classified national defense documents home

FBI
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Kansas City admitted to taking classified documents related to national defense to her home.

Kendra Kingsbury, 50, worked for the FBI from 2004 until Dec. 15, 2017, where she had a "TOP SECRET/SCI" security clearance.

An investigation revealed that Kingsbury took 386 classified documents to her North Kansas City home during her time with the FBI.

Investigators retrieved the documents from her home in electronic format on hard drives, compact discs and other forms of storage media.

The documents that Kingsbury took home were classified at the "SECRET" level.

They contained information about al Qaeda members in Africa, including a suspected associate of Usama bin Laden, among other things.

On Thursday, Kingsbury pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense.

Kingsbury said she knew 20 of the documents were classified and contained national defense information.

She faces up to 10 years in federal prison. A federal district court judge will decide her sentence based on guidelines and other statutory factors.