Jerry Chung Shing Lee,55, a former CIA Officer has been sentenced to a total of 19 years imprisonment for conspiracy to conduct espionage for the Chinese state. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 55, left the services of the CIA in 2007, and was subsequently recruited by a Chinese agent in Hong Kong, prosecutors were told. Evidence provided to the court showed that he was paid $100,000 to divulge information on the United States National Defence.
Jerry Lee pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to deliver information about US national defence to aiding a foreign country against the United States.
Jerry Lee was believed to have been paid thousands of dollars to hand over information that he was privy to during his 13-year stint at the Intelligence Institution. Court records showed that he was asked to provide 21 different national defence information.
His defence team have been arguing that the duration of his interaction with China was less than the reported period. They argued that it is yet to be proven that the money in his possession was from China and was meant as inducement to acquire US national defence information by the Chinese authorities.
The defence team argued that he should be giving a lesser sentence of 10 years.
US Attorney, Zachary Terwilliger welcomed the sentencing when he said: “Lee sold out his country, conspired to become a spy for a foreign government, and then repeatedly lied to investigators about his conduct,”
The Lee’s case is the third involving a CIA officer within the last one year. In May, former CIA spy Kevin Mallory was sentenced to 20 years in prison, after being convicted of conspiring to transmit US defence secrets to China. Former US intelligence officer Ron Rockwell Hansen was sentenced in September to 10 years in prison.
Thumb Drive Aiding Secret Information
Jerry Chung Shing Lee was recruited by Chinese agents in Hong Kong and was requested to provide sensitive information about where the CIA would normally assign officers and the cadre and experience level of such officers, court record shows.
Jerry Lee created this document and transferred it to a thumb drive from its laptop. The document created by Jerry Lee included classified US national defence information. In 2012, FBI agents raided his Hawaii hotel room and found the thumb drive along with the documents. Although, Jerry Lee denied ever passing the information to the Chinese Intelligence.
The search also revealed Lee to have a day planner and address book containing notes of intelligence provided by CIA agents, their true identities, operational meeting locations and phone numbers, and information about covert facilities.
The Justice Department leased a statement that: “The search also revealed that Lee possessed a day planner and an address book that contained handwritten notes made by Lee that mostly related to his work as a CIA case officer prior to 2004. These notes included, among other things, intelligence provided by CIA assets, true names of assets, operational meeting locations and phone numbers, and information about covert facilities.”
The Justice Department also said that:
” Lee was contacted by Chinese intelligence agents in 2010. They offered him money, promising to take care of him “for life” in exchange for the required secret information.”
Lee was interviewed by CIA officers in 2012 during which he said he had met Chinese intelligence officers but concealed the fact that they had set him tasks, the justice department said. In 2013 he first denied knowing about the document on his USB drive and then admitted he had created it but said he had never handed it on to Chinese agents. He was arrested at New York’s JFK airport in January 2018.
Significance of the Espionage Case
This espionage case was significant because Lee assisted China to identify and breakdown the network of informants between 2010 and 2012. Within this period, about 20 informants were killed or jailed.
