A former CIA employee from New York has been charged with the theft of classified national defence information from the agency.

Joshua Adam Schulte, of Manhattan, was charged in a superseding indictment returned on Monday.

The indictment also charged the 29-year-old with the receipt, possession and transportation of child pornography.

Schulte was already being detained on the child pornography charges.

Prosecutors said last month that they expected to bring charges by July.

Schulte's lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said that when all the evidence is clear, her client is "hardly the villain that the government tries to make him out to be".