Matthew Diaz Matthew Mark Diaz is a former active - duty Lieutenant Commander ( LCDR ) and Judge Advocate General ' s Corps ( JAGC ) officer in the United States Navy . In mid - to - late 2004 , Diaz served a six - month tour of duty in Guantanamo Bay , Cuba as deputy director of the detention center ' s legal office . Early in 2005 as LCDR Diaz was concluding his tour , he sent an anonymous greeting card to The Center for Constitutional Rights , a New York civil liberties and human rights group . The card contained the names of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp . In July 2006 , the United States government formally charged Diaz in a military court with five criminal counts related to the sending of these names , the most serious being that he intended to harm national security or advantage a foreign nation , a violation of the Espionage Act . In May 2007 , he was convicted by a seven - member jury of military officers on 4 of 5 counts . He served a 6 - month prison sentence and was dismissed from the military . In April 2008 , he was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth Telling . Family background . Diaz was born in 1965 in Gary , Indiana . He is one of six children . Diaz is a father to three children . His father is Robert Diaz , a California Registered Nurse convicted in 1984 for the murders of a dozen patients at two southern California hospitals . Robert Diaz ' s conviction was controversial , and he maintained his innocence until his death in 2010 . Matthew Diaz dropped out of high school to enlist in the U . S . Army at the age of 17 . He obtained his GED and a Bachelor ' s degree in Criminology during his nearly nine years of Army service . After obtaining his law degree at Washburn University School of Law in 1994 , Diaz was commissioned as a naval officer in the U . S . Navy ' s Judge Advocate General ' s Corps . He continues to play an active role in the life of his three children . Diaz ` s father died of natural causes , while still in custody , in 2010 . Military career . Diaz spent most of his adult life in military service . " The Virginian - Pilot " reports that Diaz served eight years as an enlisted man in the United States Army , prior to being commissioned in the USN ' s Judge Advocate General Corps . Matthew Diaz served his country as a deputy staff judge advocate at Guantánamo . Diaz received numerous awards throughout his career and received the highest praises of his superiors in annual fitness reports . Charges . On July 28 , 2006 , Diaz was formally charged with improperly mailing suspected classified information about detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp s to an individual unauthorized to receive it , in this case the Center for Constitutional Rights . Diaz was convicted and on May 18 , 2007 , he was sentenced to six months in prison and faced dismissal from the Navy . Scott Horton wrote : The suspect document . Barbara Olshansky , of the Center for Constitutional Rights , was the recipient of the document , placed alongside an unmarked Valentines Day card . While Olshansky had requested a list of all detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camps , the military had failed to provide one . The list provided by Diaz contained the names of 550 captives . The list had seven fields per entry . The 558 names in the official list of captives whose enemy combatant status was confirmed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal had just three fields . According to the background page to the charges against Diaz , the other six fields of the entries describing captives were : The captives ' names had not , at that time , been officially confirmed . Olshansky did not know what to make of receiving the list in this manner , so she contacted Federal authorities . Diaz was not directly involved in either the defense or prosecution of the ten detainees who faced charges before the Guantanamo military commission s . He served as a legal advisor to the JTF - GTMO , the command responsible for detention operations . Profiled in " The Guantanamo trap " . Diaz was one of the four individuals profiled in the award - winning documentary " The Guantanamo trap " . The other three individuals were Murat Kurnaz , a former Guantanamo captive ; Diane Beaver , another military lawyer , best known for drafting a memo later called " " the torture memo " " ; and Gonzalo Boye a Spanish lawyer who tried to lay charges , in Spain , against individuals he saw as responsible for war crimes committed in Guantanamo . Disbarred . Diaz was disbarred , after his release . In 2008 , Diaz ` s license to practice law had been suspended . In 2011 , Diaz appeared before a 3 - member disciplinary panel . After a day - long hearing , the panel recommended a 3 year suspension , retroactive to 2008 and that Diaz should be immediately reinstated to the Kansas Bar . The Kansas Supreme Court Kansas Supreme Court rejected the panel ' s recommendation and instead took the harsher measure of disbarment — claiming he revealed information that could have allowed terrorists to identify Guantamao staff — and claiming Diaz thus opened Guantanamo staff to a fear of retaliation . Diaz ` s lawyer , Jack Focht , issued a statement that stated the Kansas Supreme Court , " has a different view of the lawyer ' s duty to see that the client , even though the client is the United States government , does have a duty to obey the dictates of the United States Supreme Court . " Diaz was disbarred on November 21 , 2012 , and will have to wait seven years before he can request re - instatement .