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IP: Fwd: [Spooks] CIA Operative sentenced to five years imprisonment
From: [email protected]
Subject: IP: Fwd: [Spooks] CIA Operative sentenced to five years imprisonment
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:03:52 EDT
To: [email protected]
http://www.abcnews.com/wire/US/AP19980925_1626.html
AP News Service
WASHINGTON (AP) _ A former CIA operative was sentenced to five years in prison
today for trying to extort $1 million from the agency in exchange for his
silence about government eavesdropping operations. Douglas Fred Groat, 51,
pleaded guilty to the extortion charge in July. As part of the plea agreement,
federal prosecutors dropped four counts of espionage, including charges that
Groat told two foreign governments the CIA had cracked their coded
communications.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said Groat's actions appeared to stem from
his ``almost becoming obsessed'' about a job dispute with the CIA.
``I don't think at any time you really had any intention of trying to harm our
national security,'' Hogan said.
The judge said he would recommend housing Groat in a minimum-security prison
and ordered him to serve three years of supervised release after completing
his sentence. Groat, a burly, bearded man, did not speak in the courtroom
except to clarify part of his written statement to the court, which was not
immediately
released.
He said that in complaining about the ``harsh conditions of my solitary
confinement,'' he did not mean to imply that any federal officials treated him
harshly. His lawyer, public defender Robert L. Tucker, said the case was ``a
shame'' and that Groat's actions ``everybody would agree had their genesis in
a dispute with the CIA about employment.''
Prosecutors said in July a trial in the case could have forced them to
disclose sensitive national security information. Groat agreed to help the
government sort out whether his activities damaged
national security, and he promised to submit any books, articles or interviews
to federal officials for security review. Prosecutor Ron Walutes told Hogan
the government was ``fully satisfied'' with Groat's cooperation since his
guilty plea on July 27. Groat, a former employee of the CIA division that
develops eavesdropping plans and code-breaking technology, worked for the CIA
from 1980 until he was fired in October 1996. Early in his career, he served
as a field operative
participating in break-ins of foreign embassies.
In a summary agreed to in July by Groat, prosecutors said he sent a series of
letters to the CIA in 1996 and 1997 demanding $1 million and saying that in
return he would not engage in ``any activities which may hinder present or
future intelligence gathering efforts.'' Officials did not identify the two
countries Groat had been accused of aiding. Groat was held without bail since
he was arrested in April. He will be able to collect his CIA pension when he
turns 62.
He could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Groat had been the third current or former CIA employee arrested on espionage
charges in the past four years. However, he was lower-ranking than Alrich Ames
and Harold Nicholson, who pleaded guilty and are imprisoned for selling
secrets to Moscow.
Copyright 1998 AP News Service. All rights reserved
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