A Navy veteran and former CIA employee has reached a tentative plea agreement with federal prosecutors after an FBI raid uncovered more than $40 million in gold bars inside his home earlier this year.

David Rush remains in custody as the parties work to complete the agreement.

Rush has not been charged with stealing the gold, and court filings have not explained exactly how he obtained it.

He is charged with falsifying timesheets to wrongfully claim approximately $77,000 in military leave.

Rush’s attorney and federal prosecutors told a Virginia district court judge Friday that they needed additional time to finish paperwork connected to the proposed plea deal.

Court records show the agreement has not yet been finalized.

Both sides argued that resolving the case before an indictment would better serve the “ends of justice.”

Their filing cited the substantial logistical problems that would come with handling classified information during a trial.

“The parties have made significant progress and have a plea agreement in principle that would resolve the matter prior to an indictment,” they said in the filing approved by a federal judge.

The specific charges covered by the tentative agreement remain unclear, as does any sentence Rush could face.

Rush and prosecutors have until Oct. 8 to settle the remaining details, including a statement of facts.

Jessica Carmichael, Rush’s attorney, declined Thursday to comment on the case. The limited public record leaves major questions unanswered about both the proposed resolution and the extraordinary cache seized from Rush’s home.

Court documents have identified Rush only as a senior executive service level employee at a U.S. government agency.

The documents state that he held a top secret/secure compartmented information clearance.

The New York Times reported Friday that Rush was a senior employee in the CIA’s science and technology division. According to that report, Rush was working on highly classified programs for the CIA and the Pentagon when he was arrested May 19.

An FBI agent said in a May 20 court filing that investigators found 303 gold bars during the search of Rush’s home.

Each bar weighed about 2 pounds, and agents also discovered approximately $2 million in cash and 35 luxury watches.

The filing did not establish how Rush obtained the gold bars, cash or watches.

That unanswered question hangs over the case even as prosecutors and Rush’s attorney move toward resolving the pending matter without an indictment.

From November 2025 through March, Rush repeatedly requested substantial amounts of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars from his agency, the FBI agent said. Rush sought the assets for expenses connected to his work.

A later review of storage space at Rush’s office found only a small portion of the money.

His employer could not locate a significant amount of the currency or gold bars, and it could not identify how those assets had been used, according to the agent.

The FBI agent’s eight page statement also alleged that an investigation found Rush had falsified his education and Navy service records.

The filing said his government job applications included a claim that he had served as a pilot.

Rush was honorably discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2015 at the rank of lieutenant. Despite that discharge, he also told his employer that he was a captain in the Navy Reserve through at least September 2025, according to the filing.

“The FBI’s investigation has revealed that Rush provided false information about his education and military service on his application to the (U.S. government) and fraudulently took military leave after he separated from the military,” the agent said.

Rush enlisted in the Navy in 1997 and was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve in 2004.

His current charge centers on the alleged military leave fraud, not theft of the gold found during the raid.