BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - A former Central Intelligence Agency case officer is facing life imprisonment after pleading guilty to spying for China.
Senior U.S. District Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, T.S. Ellis III accepted Jerry Chun Shing Lee's guilty plea, the US Department Of Justice said.
According to court documents, Lee, 54, left the CIA in 2007 and began residing in Hong Kong. In April 2010, two Chinese intelligence officers approached Lee and offered to pay him in exchange for national defense information he had acquired as a CIA case officer. Lee was offered a gift of $100,000 cash. They also promised to take care of him 'for life' in exchange for his cooperation.
The secret data that Lee transferred to China included a US national defense information that was classified at the secret level.
In May 2010, Lee created on his laptop a document that described certain locations to which the CIA would assign officers with certain identified experience, as well as the particular location and time frame of a sensitive CIA operation. Lee transferred it to a thumb drive.
In August 2012, the FBI raided Lee's hotel room in Honolulu, and found that Lee deleted the document from the thumb drive.
The search also revealed that Lee possessed a day planner and an address book that contained handwritten notes related to his work as a CIA case officer. These notes included intelligence provided by CIA assets, true names of assets, operational meeting locations and phone numbers, and information about covert facilities.
Lee was arrested in January 2018, and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deliver national defense information to aid a foreign government.
He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the crime. The sentencing is scheduled for August 23.
'Today, Mr. Lee accepts responsibility not only for his crimes but also for their dangerous ramifications,' said John Brown, the FBI's assistant director for counterintelligence.
The Chinese spy was brought to justice as a result of the combined effort of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, the Washington Field Office, and the Department of Justice.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2019 AFX News
