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(NEW YORK) — In 2015, three men, all current or former Florida correctional officers, were arrested after investigators revealed they were Ku Klux Klan members plotting to kill a Black former inmate.

Now, “Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK,” a new documentary and first-time collaboration between ABC News and The Associated Press takes viewers inside one of America’s most sinister secret societies and the covert FBI operation to stop a modern-day lynching.

When the state of Florida announced the arrests of Thomas Driver, Charles Newcomb, and David Moran, it caught the eye of Associated Press journalist Jason Dearen.

“I just started looking into it and I kind of became obsessed with it.”

“Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK” is now streaming on Hulu.

Dearen wrote a series of articles about the case, piecing together information from court documents and interviews, but said, “there were just a lot of questions, a lot more questions than answers.”

He knew that a confidential informant who infiltrated the klan had exposed the murder plot and led to the arrests, but he didn’t know much else about this person.

“It was only after I wrote the second article in my series that I received an email and my heart stopped. The subject was, ‘This is Joseph Moore.'”

In 2013, the FBI asked Joe Moore, a former Army sniper, to go undercover inside a local klan organization.

“We had been receiving a series of directives going back to 2006 concerning the threat from domestic terrorism extremism groups,” said Chris Graham, the FBI Supervisory Special Agent in Jacksonville, Florida during Moore’s recruitment. “The KKK has the history, the image, so to speak. They’re capable and dangerous.”

Moore said his mission was to “go inside the KKK to identify people that are involved and to forewarn the FBI of any illegal activities.”

In order to join the Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK (TAKKKK), he embellished his military accolades and signed a blood oath. “They tell you that if you violate or disclose the secrets of the KKK, you’ll pay with your blood.”

Moore, 51, during an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, revealed that he fears for his family’s safety since his undercover operation.

According to Moore, even though his family was relocated and given new identities by the FBI, they have received threats from KKK members and supporters. He says he is coming forward now in an effort to protect them.

“If something were to happen to me, I need the world to know the truth,” Moore said.

Produced by George Stephanopoulos Productions for ABC News Studios, the documentary features rarely-heard undercover audio and video from the investigation, firsthand accounts from FBI agents and the intended victim’s mother, and intimate access and interviews with undercover source, Moore.

Moore spent his first year inside the TAKKKK gathering intelligence and learning the intricacies of the klan. Offering ABC News a look at confidential klan documents, Moore explained that the klan has an extensive language to weed out potential intruders.

“They use acronyms in order to ensure that impostors were not infiltrating the meeting or the klan. They would use terms like ‘A.Y.A.K..’ ‘Are you a klansman?’ And the proper response if you are a Klansman is, ‘A.K.I.A..’ ‘A klansman I am.’ If you don’t respond with ‘A.K.I.A.,’ they know you’re not a Klansman.”

After rising through the ranks, thanks to his military background, Moore became the Grand Knighthawk for the Florida and Georgia realm of the TAKKKK, expanding his purview and connecting him with high-ranking klan leaders across the country.

The role made him the top security officer of the region’s klan, among other, more nefarious, responsibilities.

“The Grand Knighthawk has been sort of a hitman for the KKK,” said Moore. “I embraced the fact that the KKK might call upon me for violence.”

Dearen’s investigation into the organization found that multiple members had violent pasts. “The Klan tries to present a public face of being kind of a social club, but behind the scenes, oftentimes they’re plotting violence,” he said.

The news that Driver, Newcomb, and Moran were members of a white supremacist organization while working as correctional officers, may have surprised some, but according to Dearen, Florida law enforcement moonlighting as klansmen was nothing new.

Over the past decade alone, investigators discovered klan members working in local, county and state law enforcement agencies in Florida.

“These groups are trying to recruit law enforcement,” said Greg Ehrie, the former FBI Section Chief of Domestic Terrorism Operations. “They’re armed. They’ve had training. They have access to confidential information.”

The extremist group’s continued presence in Florida law enforcement agencies is in keeping with state history, Dearen said. Klan members ran towns and were sheriffs less than 100 years ago in Florida.

“You’re not gonna surprise no Black person by telling them the klan is working in prisons, not southern Black people,” said Antwan Williams, a former inmate of the Florida Department of Corrections.

Driver, Newcomb, and Moran all, at one time, worked at Florida’s Reception and Medical Center, a state prison and hospital in Lake Butler.

It was at this correctional facility that Thomas Driver got into an altercation with the intended victim, Warren Williams.

Williams, who has a history of mental health issues, was serving time at the facility after hitting a police officer during a mental health episode. During their fight, Williams bit Driver.

According to Williams’ mother, Latonya Crowley, Williams was beaten so badly by Driver that he was sent to the hospital.

Warren Williams grew up in North Florida, in a town called Palatka, on the St. John’s River. Crowley said that as a child, Williams enjoyed spending time outdoors, especially fishing.

Williams spent a year in prison and came home to his mother’s house, the fight with Driver still heavy on his mind.

“He said, ‘Momma, ain’t nobody will ever hear my story,'” Crowley said. “I was like, ‘Okay, well, sit down and tell me your story.'”

The fight was still on Driver’s mind, too. He had to undergo routine testing for communicable diseases, like HIV and Hep-C, after Williams’ bite.

“Because of the worry over whether or not he picked up one of these diseases, he said it had caused his family immeasurable stress and that he just wanted this guy assassinated,” Dearen said.

In December 2014, at a cross burning in rural North Florida, the three men approached Moore with a request. Driver told Moore about his fight with Williams and handed him a piece of paper with Williams’ information on it.

“I asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ Moore said. “‘Do you want him six feet under?’ And they said, Yes.'”

Up until that moment, Moore’s time undercover had been largely uneventful, but that night would change everything.

After their conversation, Moore said he immediately called his FBI handlers to warn them about the potential murder plot.

“Everything about that meeting was chilling,” said Graham. “It’s not illegal to engage in hateful speech. What is illegal is to go from hateful speech into the planning of a criminal act, a violent act.”

“The KKK wanted to catch my son, cut him up in pieces on the creek, and leave him there,” Crowley said.

“It was obvious that they did harbor racial animosity toward the victim,” said Paul Brown, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent. “There was absolute intent to see this carried out.”

Realizing the severity of the threat, the FBI formulated a plan, getting Moore to continue discussing the would-be murder with the klan members, this time wearing a wire.

“He’s obviously interacting with and around people that have expressed a clear intent to commit murder,” Brown said. “If it came out that Joe was cooperating and working with the FBI, we feared his life could very well be in danger.”

Over the next several months, Joe Moore would find himself pushed to the edge – balancing two lives and desperately racing to stop this murder.

“I’ve asked myself time and time again if knowing then what I know now, would I have done it again?” Moore said. “Ultimately I know I would say yes.”

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(NEW YORK) — A large and “extremely dangerous” tornado was confirmed in Florida Thursday amid a severe weather threat across much of the state.

The tornado was located nine miles south of Greensboro at 4:09 p.m. ET, moving northeast at 20 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee has issued a tornado warning for Aucilla until 7 p.m. and for Coolidge, Georgia, until 7:15 p.m. ET, as “severe storms continue to progress east/southeast across the southeast Big Bend.”

A confirmed tornado was located over Lynn Haven, near Panama City on the Gulf Coast, shortly after 3 p.m. CT, the NWS said.

Severe thunderstorm watches have been issued for much of northern and eastern Florida, as well as southeastern Georgia, through 10 p.m. Thursday.

More than 15 million people are under a severe weather threat Thursday, affecting areas along the Gulf Coast, the east coast of Florida from Jacksonville to West Palm, far southern Texas and the Mid-South from Memphis to Tupelo, Mississippi.

In addition to the tornado threat, hail and damaging winds are possible.

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(PITTSBURGH, Penn.) — A school district in Pennsylvania is proposing starting classes later in the morning to improve the physical health and mental well-being of students.

Upper St. Clair School District — a suburb of Pittsburgh — would change the start times of its high schools, elementary schools and middle schools, if the plan is approved by the school board, Superintendent Dr. John Rozzo told ABC News.

Currently, high school students in the district begin classes at 7:30 a.m. ET. However, under the new start time, they would begin at 8:00 a.m. ET.

Because of transportation — such as school buses — being pushed back for older kids, elementary and middle school students would also get later start times with the former now beginning at 8:35 a.m. ET and the latter at 8:55 a.m. ET.

Rozzo said that the district had been studying the benefits of moving back school start times since the early 1990s, but it never got off the ground. However, it was revisited in 2015 as part of the district’s five-year plan.

“One of the focal points of that 2015 strategic plan was the high school experience and examining start time for students and the impact it had on academics, on their health, their mental health and behavioral health and physical health,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed plans but now “we finally feel confident that we had a point making the recommendation and hopefully, if approved, would go into effect in August,” Rozzo added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics have both advocated for later start times for students.

It is currently recommended that teenagers between ages 13 to 18 get between eight and 10 hours of regular sleep every night.

Research has shown this helps reduce the risk of being overweight, suffering from symptoms of depression, poor academic performance in school and engaging in risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking and drug use.

“This is not something that’s driven by our opinions or our personal preferences, or even administrative conveyance,” Rozzo said. “It’s driven by what is well documented in the research literature, and that’s that later starts have a significant amount of benefits for students, particularly adolescents and teens.”

Of course, the district is not the first in the country to introduce such a measure.

In 2019, California became the first state to mandate that high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

Bills have been introduced asking for similar start times, including in New Jersey and in Tennessee.

For the Upper St. Clair School District, the recommendation for the change in start times will be presented at a May school board meeting, where there will be a vote for approval.

Rozzo said the recommendation has been met with overwhelmingly positive feedback from students, staff and parents alike and — although recognizing every district has specific needs — he hopes other administrators consider changing starting times.

“I would hope that as more districts like ours make this change and that others see the importance and the need to also do it,” he said. “I fully recognize though everyone has their own unique challenges specific to their communities, specific to their districts…I think if it were easy, a lot more people would have done it already.”

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(FORT LEE, Va.) — Fort Lee, a U.S. Army post named after the leader of the Confederate army during the Civil War, was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of two Black U.S. Army trailblazers during a redesignation ceremony Thursday.

“I hope that this community will look with pride on the name Fort Gregg-Adams and that the name will instill pride in every soldier entering our mighty gates,” said Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg, one of the pioneers the Virginia post is renamed after, during the ceremony.

Among his accomplishments in over 35 years of service beginning in 1946, Gregg was the first Black quartermaster officer to rise to the rank of brigadier general, according to Maj. Gen. Mark Simerly, commanding general of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command and senior commander of Fort Lee. When Gregg was promoted to lieutenant general, he became the first Black officer in the Army to reach a three-star rank.

The army post was also renamed in recognition of Lt. Col. Charity Adams, who paused her pursuit of a master’s degree in psychology to serve in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II, the Army said. At 25, she was chosen to lead the sole unit of predominantly Black women in the European Theater of Operations. Her unit delivered mail to and from millions of soldiers fighting in Europe.

The military base had previously been named after Gen. Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate forces.

During Gregg’s remarks, he noted how proud he was to share the honor with Adams.

“Her performance in getting the mail delivered in a very chaotic environment has made the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion a legend that gets bigger every day,” he said.

Simerly described the two pioneers as “exceptional leaders.”

“They led with dignity, they looked the part, they maintained their composure and they led by example,” he said. “In short, these two epitomize the professional qualities we seek in every leader who wears the uniform of the United States Army.”

Fort Gregg-Adams is one of several Army installations being redesignated in the mission of removing displays commemorating the Confederacy, according to the Army.

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday it has suspended its search for a cruise ship passenger from Australia who went overboard a few hundred miles off the coast of Hawaii.

The incident occurred at approximately 11:03 p.m. Tuesday night, when the Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu received a report from the Quantum of the Seas cruise ship that a man had gone overboard about 500 miles south of Kailua Kona, Big Island, according to the Coast Guard.

The cruise ship’s crew searched for approximately two hours, deploying six life rings, the Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point C-130 Hercules aircrew launched at 7 a.m. on Wednesday morning and arrived on the scene at approximately 9 a.m. but did not have any luck finding the missing man after completing five searches.

The search resumed Thursday morning, before the Coast Guard announced it has suspended the active search later that day.

“After reviewing all relevant information of the case and discussing with our Australian consulate counterparts as well as with the next of kin, the Coast Guard has made the difficult decision to suspend the active search for the passenger aboard the Quantum of the Seas,” Kevin Cooper, a search and rescue mission coordinator for the Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu, said in a statement.

Quantum of the Seas departed from Brisbane, Australia, on April 12 and is scheduled to arrive in Honolulu on April 28.

Royal Caribbean — who operates Quantum of the Seas — also released a statement on Wednesday confirming the missing passenger.

“While on its trans-pacific sailing, a guest onboard Quantum of the Seas went overboard,” Royal Caribbean said. “The ship’s crew immediately launched a search and rescue operation and is working closely with local authorities.”

Authorities did not give any further details on how the man may have ended up going overboard.

ABC News’ Clara McMichael contributed to this report.

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(ANTIOCH TOWNSHIP, Ill.) — An Illinois man using a leaf blower on his property was shot and killed by his own neighbor this month, becoming the latest in a string of high-profile shooting victims targeted while doing everyday tasks.

According to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, William Martys was found dead in his Antioch Township driveway around 7:35 p.m. on April 12 with a gunshot wound to his head. He was declared dead at a local hospital.

After an investigation, authorities on Tuesday arrested Martys’ 79-year-old neighbor, Ettore Lacchei, who they say approached Martys and began arguing with him. During the dispute, Lacchei shot and killed Martys.

“Our condolences go out to the family and friends of William Martys, who was senselessly murdered,” said Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg. “The members of the sheriff’s office are relentless when it comes to seeking justice for victims. The members of our Criminal Investigations Division have been working around the clock to bring Mr. Martys’ murderer to justice, and I am happy Mr. Martys’ family can begin the closure and healing process.”

Lacchei is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond in the county jail.

In a press release, the sheriff’s department said that Lacchei had “various perceived grievances” with Martys.”

A neighbor of both men confirmed that history to ABC affiliate WLS, claiming that Lacchei had pulled a gun on Martys at least once before.

“No one deserves anything like that and it’s just kind of crazy to think that someone can just break like that over just a simple argument that can be fixed just talking,” said neighbor JR McCarty.

Investigators found the likely murder weapon near Lacchei’s property line, the sheriff’s office said.

Martys’ daughter, Jacquelyn Martys, told the Washington Post that the family had no comment on her father’s death.

“We are trying to deal with the tremendous loss,” she said.

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(SPRING VALLEY, Miss.) — A detainee who escaped from a Mississippi jail along with three other men nearly a week ago has been detained in Texas, authorities said Thursday.

The breach occurred at the Raymond Detention Center Saturday night, when four detainees escaped through the roof of the Hinds County jail, according to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office.

A Hinds County public works pickup truck that was reported stolen amid the breach was found abandoned Sunday afternoon in Spring Valley, Texas, in the Houston area, authorities said.

One of the escaped detainees, 51-year-old Jerry Raynes, was captured on surveillance footage at a service station Sunday morning in Spring Valley, according to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office.

Raynes has since been captured in Spring Valley and will be held facing extradition back to Mississippi, the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

Raynes had been in the Raymond Detention Center since January 2022 after being charged with auto theft and business burglary and has a history of escaping pretrial detention facilities, according to Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones.

He and three other men were discovered missing from the jail early Sunday following a headcount, according to Jones. The men were pretrial detainees, meaning they were being held in prison while awaiting trial.

One of the escaped detainees — 22-year-old Dylan Arrington — was killed in a shootout with deputies at a residence in Leake County Wednesday morning, according to Jones. Arrington had barricaded himself inside the home, which somehow became engulfed in flames during the standoff, Jones said.

While on the loose, Arrington was believed to be involved in a fatal carjacking in Jackson on Monday. The victim — identified as the Rev. Anthony Watts — was believed to have pulled over to help after someone crashed a motorcycle before he was fatally shot, authorities said.

Arrington had been in the detention center since April 13 after being charged with auto theft and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, according to the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office.

The other escaped detainees were identified by the sheriff’s office as Casey Grayson, 24, who had been detained since mid-February and was charged with the sale of a controlled substance and grand larceny, and Corey Harrison, 22, who was charged with receiving stolen property and had been detained since April 7.

Their whereabouts are currently unknown, Jones said Wednesday, while noting that most of the detainees were believed to be in the central Mississippi area following their escape. It was unconfirmed if Raynes had traveled to Texas alone, Jones previously said.

ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.

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(ATLANTA) — A teenager has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a Black transgender woman in Atlanta, police said.

Officers responded to reports of a woman suffering from a gunshot wound at a shopping plaza on April 18. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police have not publicly identified the victim, though a relative confirmed to ABC News that it was Rasheeda Williams, 35, an aspiring musician whose music was set to be featured on the Showtime drama “The Chi.”

Williams, aka Koko Da Doll, was also featured in “Kokomo City,” a documentary about Black transgender sex workers in Georgia and New York that won awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Atlanta police announced Thursday they arrested 17-year-old Jermarcus Jernigan after “homicide detectives were able to establish probable cause” and secure warrants for murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Jernigan turned himself in to police on Wednesday and was later transported to the Fulton County Jail and taken into their custody without incident, the Atlanta Police Department said. It is unclear if he has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.

Williams’ sister also confirmed the arrest in the case to ABC News. She will be laid to rest on Monday.

Police did not release any further details on the shooting.

D. Smith, the film’s director, said in an Instagram post that Koko Da Doll was “the latest victim of violence against Black transgender women.”

The fatal shooting is one of three “violent crimes” against transgender women that Atlanta police said they are currently investigating.

“While these individual incidents are unrelated, we are very aware of the epidemic-level violence black and brown transgender women face in America,” the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement last week.

A week before Koko Da Doll’s death, another Black transgender woman was killed at an apartment complex on April 11. Police have not publicly identified the victim in this case, though friends and family identified the victim to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB as 37-year-old hairstylist Ashley Burton.

Atlanta police are also investigating a shooting that occurred the night of Jan. 9 at an apartment complex. A transgender woman was transported to the hospital in critical condition.

Both of those incidents involved a dispute, police said.

ABC News’ Armando Garcia contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department filed a complaint to challenge a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth, arguing the law violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The department is asking a U.S district court to issue an order to prevent the law from going into effect on July 1.

The law restricts medical procedures specifically for the purpose of gender transitioning, which would impact access to puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries for transgender people under 18.

The new policy states that these restrictions supersede “any common law rule regarding a minor’s ability to consent to a medical procedure.”

The DOJ argues in the complaint, filed Wednesday, that the ban discriminates against transgender people on the basis of sex and gender identity, as these procedures remain available to non-transgender people.

“By denying only transgender youth access to these forms of medically necessary care while allowing non-transgender minors access to the same or similar procedures, SB 1 discriminates against transgender youth,” the DOJ said in a statement.

Major national medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and over 20 more agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary.

Gov. Bill Lee, who signed the legislation, defended the law.

“Tennessee is committed to protecting children from permanent, life-altering decisions,” he said in a tweet. “This is federal overreach at its worst, and we will work with Attorney General Skrmetti to push back in court and stand up for children.”

Gender-affirming care has been proven in several studies to improve the mental health of transgender youth, who are more likely to face anxiety, depression, suicidal ideations and more due to discrimination and gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria refers to the psychological distress of presenting as a gender that doesn’t feel like one’s own, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

“The right to consider your health and medically-approved treatment options with your family and doctors is a right that everyone should have, including transgender children, who are especially vulnerable to serious risks of depression, anxiety and suicide,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement.

At least 13 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah — have passed laws or policies that restrict gender-affirming care for people under the age of legal majority, which is the threshold for legal adulthood. Meanwhile, other states including California, Minnesota, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, and New Mexico have passed laws or policies protecting transgender youth care.

Critics of these bans, including LGBTQ advocates and allies, argue that restrictions will impact the mental health of transgender youth, who already face discrimination and violence. They argue these bans infringe on a family’s right to make medical decisions with their doctors.

Supporters of the bans, including some conservative lawmakers, argue that transgender people should wait until they are legally adults before making these decisions.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Cheris Rudy contributed to this report.

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(WORCESTER, Mass.) — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts airman accused of leaking highly classified U.S. intelligence documents, is asking a magistrate judge to release him from pretrial detention, though prosecutors allege the 21-year-old is a flight risk and, if released on bail, say he could “further disseminate classified information” and “take refuge with a foreign adversary.”

Teixeira walked into the courtroom for his Thursday detention hearing handcuffed, wearing a long rosary necklace and an orange jumpsuit. The 21-year-old looked at his family members sitting in the first two rows, and one woman in the front row began to cry.

The federal magistrate judge, David Hennessy, heard arguments Thursday about whether Teixeira should be kept in federal custody ahead of his trial, but Hennessy said he needed more time to review before making a decision.

Federal prosecutors argued in a Wednesday court filing that Teixeira “poses a serious flight risk” and it would be “all too easy” for him, if released on bail, “to further disseminate classified information” and “take refuge with a foreign adversary.” Prosecutors also claimed that Teixeira took “a series of obstructive steps” intended to prevent investigators from understanding the scope of what he allegedly did and they outlined in detail the reasons they believe he poses a danger to the public if allowed to be released from detention, pointing to the “virtual arsenal of weapons” he possessed at residences he occupied that are owned by his mother and father.

Prosecutors argued Thursday that Teixeira is both a flight and national security risk. They said evidence showed he had performed hundreds of searches on the classified network, accessing it almost daily, including at times from inside his mother’s home. They pointed out he’d accessed far more classified information that he had ever posted, and suggested that information would drive foreign adversaries to potentially contact or help him, and given his untrustworthy nature, he would be likely to flee, comparing him directly to Edward Snowden.

Teixeira’s public defender argued in a new filing that even if Hennessy finds Teixeira poses a risk of flight or obstruction, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member should still be permitted to remain out of pretrial detention in the custody of his father or confined to a home with the presence of either his father, mother, stepfather, Air Force personnel or his lawyers.

Teixeira’s lawyer, Allen Franco, suggested that Teixeira could have restrictions imposed on him like location monitoring, barring him from accessing the internet or contacting any potential witnesses in the case and bond that could be secured by both his parents’ homes.

Teixeira’s father testified Thursday that he was prepared to serve as a third-party custodian pending his son’s release. His father testified that all of his guns have been removed from his home and he indicated he’d be prepared to report his son to the authorities should the 21-year-old violate the terms of his release.

Teixeira’s dad said he doesn’t have any computers in his house, and that he’d remove his password-protected tablet if his son were to be released. He also was willing to remove his internet-connected television from the house.

Teixeira’s lawyer further disputed that he’d be a flight risk by pointing to how, when Teixeira became aware of his impending arrest, he sat on his mother’s porch and read a Bible as he waited for law enforcement to arrive.

Franco in his filing also addressed the government’s detailing of Texeira’s suspension during his sophomore year in high school over allegations he made violent and racist threats. The incident “was thoroughly investigated” at the time, Franco wrote, and Teixeira was allowed to return to school after a “handful” of days following a psychiatric evaluation.

Franco revealed that the incident was also “fully known and vetted by the Air National Guard prior to enlisting and also when he obtained his top-secret security clearance.”

Teixeira’s attorney also argued that the government has offered “no evidence” that his client ever intended for information shared within the Discord server “to be widely disseminated.”

“There is no allegation in the affidavit that Mr. Teixeira had any intent for these documents to become widely available on the internet or desired to disrupt the geopolitical affairs of the United States,” his attorney wrote. “Thus, there is no reason to suggest that, if released, Mr. Teixeira has any motivation, desire, or current ability to commit any actions like those alleged in the complaint affidavit or in the government’s supplemental motion for detention.”

Teixeira, a native of Dighton, Massachusetts, has been charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information as well as willful retention of classified documents, which collectively carry a maximum of 15 years in prison. He has yet to enter a plea.

The FBI-Boston tactical team arrested Teixeira on April 13 and he made an initial appearance in federal court in Boston the following day.

The criminal complaint alleges that Teixeira “improperly and unlawfully retained and transmitted national defense information to people not authorized to receive it.” The leaked documents apparently contain top-secret information about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other parts of the world. Teixeira allegedly accessed a government document on Feb. 23 and posted it online the following day, according to the complaint. It’s the disclosure of that one document that forms the basis of the initial charges.

ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Aaron Katersky, Luis Martinez and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.

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