A Pentagon employee, James W. Fondren Jr., has been charged with conspiring to give US Defense Department secrets to an agent of the Chinese communist government. Fondren Jr. was not aware the agent was a Chinese spy but was under the impression he was an official from Twaiwan.
Fondren sold the Chinese spy classified documents detailing U.S.-Taiwanese military relations. He could face up to 5 years in prison. USA Today
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A Defense Department official was charged Wednesday with conspiring to give U.S. defense secrets to an agent for the Chinese government under the mistaken impression that the agent was working for Taiwan.
James W. Fondren Jr., 62, is the second Pentagon official charged with giving classified documents to New Orleans furniture salesman Tai Shen Kuo, who pleaded guilty to spying for Beijing and was sentenced last year to nearly 16 years in prison.
Kuo, a Taiwan native and naturalized U.S. citizen with prominent family ties in Taiwan, has admitted that he masqueraded as a Taiwanese agent when in reality he was working with an agent of the Communist regime in Beijing — what spy-hunters call a "false flag" operation.
Prosecutors contend that between 2004 and 2008, Fondren gave Kuo classified information through "opinion papers" he sold to Kuo for between $350 and $800 apiece. Eight of the papers allegedly contained classified information, according to investigators.
The papers dealt primarily with U.S.-Taiwanese military relations.
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