Sino-American Doubtful Loyalty

Ex-C.I.A. Officer Pleads Guilty to Conspiring With China
By Julian E. Barnes

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 54, faces up to life in prison on a conspiracy charge, but prosecutors will seek 17 to 27 years.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former C.I.A. officer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of conspiring with Chinese intelligence agents in a case that highlighted the growing aggressiveness of Beijing’s spy services.
The officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 54, entered the guilty plea as part of an agreement with prosecutors, who dropped two charges related to retaining classified information. 

Judge T. S. Ellis III of Federal District Court in Alexandria is scheduled to sentence Lee at the end of August.
Lee could still face up to life in prison on the conspiracy charge, but as part of the plea deal prosecutors will seek a sentence of 17 to 27 years. 

At the hearing on Wednesday, Judge Ellis repeatedly said he did not have to be bound by that agreement. 

Lee, wearing a green jumpsuit labeled “Alexandria Inmate,” said he understood.

Lee’s contact with Chinese intelligence came in 2010, at the same time the C.I.A.’s informant network in China collapsed. 

Intelligence officials have been divided over how the network crumbled. 

While some believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources, others believed that Lee had given the Chinese at least some of the names.
Lee had the names of C.I.A. assets in notebooks found by the F.B.I. 

But no evidence has been entered publicly in court that those informants were among the C.I.A. assets arrested or killed by China.

In his guilty plea, Lee acknowledged that he met with Chinese intelligence agents and took instructions from them about information they sought.
F.B.I. and Justice Department officials pronounced themselves satisfied with the plea, which avoided a trial that could have risked making public information that the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. want to keep secret.

“By knowingly aiding a foreign government, Lee put our country’s national security at serious risk and also threatened the safety and personal security of innocent people, namely his former intelligence colleagues,” said John Brown, the F.B.I.’s assistant director for counterintelligence.
The case has received a high level of attention because of an increase in Chinese espionage in recent years. 

Kevin Mallory, a former official with the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, was found guilty in June. 

Ron Hansen, another D.I.A. official, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in March.
“This is the third case in less than a year in which a former U.S. intelligence officer has pleaded or been found guilty of conspiring with Chinese intelligence services to pass them national defense information,” said John C. Demers, an assistant attorney general. 

“Every one of these cases is a tragic betrayal of country and colleagues.”
Lee was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Hawaii and was a naturalized American citizen. 

After he left the C.I.A. in 2007, he moved with his family to Hong Kong.
After leaving the C.I.A., Lee took a job with an international tobacco company but was fired two years later. 

In June 2010, he started a cigarette import business in Hong Kong, with a former Hong Kong police officer who prosecutors said Wednesday had ties to Hong Kong intelligence.
Lee’s business partner set up a meeting in mainland China with two people who turned out to be Chinese intelligence operatives, prosecutors said. 

Lee reported that meeting to the C.I.A. later, prosecutors said Wednesday, but lied about the circumstances and did not tell the agency he had been offered money.
Prosecutors outlined how Lee created a document with information about C.I.A. facilities and then tried to delete that document. 

They also said Lee had notebooks with the names of C.I.A. assets, the information defense lawyers said was never given to Chinese intelligence.
A pretrial sentencing report is due in mid-August, about a week before Lee’s sentencing.