CLOAK AND DAGGER

Former CIA Agent Pleads Guilty to Passing Defense Information to China

The third case of a former U.S. intelligence officer pleading guilty to or being found guilty of conspiring with Chinese intelligence in less than a year.

A former CIA agent pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to commit espionage against the U.S. government. The former CIA case officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, admitted to “conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to the People’s Republic of China,” according to a Department of Justice press release. Lee left the CIA in 2007 and moved to Hong Kong, where he was approached by two Chinese intelligence officers in 2010 who offered to pay him for national defense information on the U.S. Over the next three years, he made multiple cash deposits worth hundreds of thousands of dollars into his personal bank account, all allegedly for passing on classified intelligence about the CIA. “This is the third case in less than a year in which a former US intelligence officer has pled or been found guilty of conspiring with Chinese intelligence services to pass them national defense information,” said Assistant Attorney General Demers. Lee faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, with his sentencing scheduled for Aug. 23, 2019.

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