|
¡@
Former Pentagon official sentenced in
China case
SECOND OFFICIAL: Retired Air Force lieutenant colonel
James Fondren, 62, received a three year sentence, the second Pentagon official
to be convicted in the spy case
AP, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
Sunday, Jan 24, 2010, Page 3
¡§I should not have helped my friend [Kuo] in his business.¡¨¡X James Fondren,
former Pentagon official
A former Pentagon official was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison for
espionage after being convicted of giving classified information to a Chinese
spy masquerading as an agent for Taiwan.
The sentence imposed on James Fondren, 62, of Annandale, Virginia, was
significantly less than the six-and-a-half years sought by prosecutors.
US District Judge Claude Hilton said a lighter sentence was warranted because
the information disclosed by Fondren caused little or no harm to US national
security.
A jury last year convicted Fondren, who retired from the Air Force as a
lieutenant colonel in 1996 and later worked at the Pentagon as a civilian, on
three of eight counts, including an espionage count.
Over a period of years, Fondren prepared several dozen ¡§opinion papers¡¨ for a
friend, Louisiana businessman Kuo Tai-shen (³¢¥x¥Í), who paid Fondren anywhere from
US$300 to US$1,500 per paper.
Kuo, a naturalized US citizen from Taiwan, turned out to be a spy for China. He
pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison. He
was the key prosecution witness at Fondren¡¦s trial.
Fondren is the second Pentagon official to be convicted in the Kuo case. Former
Defense Department employee Gregg Bergersen pleaded guilty to providing secrets
to Kuo and was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
Prosecutors said Fondren thought that Kuo was aligned with Taiwan. However,
Fondren had reason to suspect that Kuo was working for Beijing ¡X Fondren and Kuo
once took a joint trip to China and met Kuo¡¦s handler, a government official
named Lin Hong.
Fondren, for his part, testified that he never intended to disclose classified
information, and he thought everything in his opinion papers came from publicly
available information. He is appealing his conviction.
In a brief statement to the judge before he was sentenced, Fondren said: ¡§I
should not have helped my friend [Kuo] in his business.¡¨
The sole espionage count on which Fondren was convicted centered on a classified
document from November 2007 on talks between the US military and China¡¦s
People¡¦s Liberation Army.
Prosecutor Neil Hammerstrom said that Fondren¡¦s claims that he was unaware of
Kuo¡¦s links to foreign governments are belied by the evidence in the case,
including recorded conversations in which Fondren tells Kuo to tell his handlers
the information they are seeking from him is too difficult to obtain.
Hammerstrom told the judge: ¡§He knowingly committed espionage. He passed
information to a spy for the PRC [People¡¦s Republic of China].¡¨
¡@
|
