WASHINGTON, Nov 23: A US court sentenced a former CIA case officer, who worked in China and has first-hand knowledge of some of the agency’s most sensitive secrets, to 19 years in prison, the Justice Department announced in a press release.
“[Jerry Chun Shing] Lee betrayed his own country for greed and put his former colleagues at risk. The seriousness of his betrayal and crime is demonstrated by today’s sentencing,” Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Timothy Slater said in the release on Friday.
Lee pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit US national defense information to China, the release said.
“In just over a year, we have convicted three Americans for committing espionage offenses on behalf of the Chinese government. Each has now received a sentence of at least a decade,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in the release.
All three were former members of the US intelligence community, Demers added.
Lee, left the CIA in 2007 after a 13 year career and moved to Hong Kong. Three years later, two Chinese intelligence officers approached Lee and offered take care of him “for life,” according to court documents cited in the release.
Lee later deposited nearly $17,468 in into his personal bank account, the first of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash deposits in Lee’s account from May 2010 through December 2013, the release said.
An August 2012 FBI raid of a hotel room in the state of Hawaii registered in Lee’s name discovered a thumb drive with sensitive documents, as well as handwritten notes made by Lee that mostly related to his work as a CIA case officer prior to 2004, the release also said.
The notes included intelligence provided by CIA assets, true names of assets, operational meeting locations and phone numbers and information about covert facilities, the release added.
(AGENCIES)
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