(CNN) -- The attorney representing the 22-year-old Kentucky soldier charged with attempted espionage and communicating military information said Tuesday that his client told him he is innocent. "Generally speaking, yes -- that he is not guilty of attempted espionage or spying against the United States," Stephen Karns said of what the solider told him. Spc. William Colton Millay of Owensboro, Kentucky, was charged this week with attempted espionage and communicating military information, allegations that have shocked friends who have described him as a patriotic country boy. The formal charges were issued 10 days after Millay was arrested at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, said Col. Bill Coppernoll, the public affairs officer at the base.
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Spc. William Colton Millay faces charges including communicating military information
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His lawyer says Millay told him he is not guilty
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Soldier believed he was giving info to "a foreign intelligence agent," military says
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The 22-year-old Kentucky native enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2007
He is also charged with making false statements, having allegedly not been forthright in telling @placeholder counterintelligence officials "the full scope" of his attempted contacts with other governments and "the full nature" of what he'd disclosed to the believed-to-be foreign agent.