Jurors deliberate fate of spy suspect - Regan may be executed if found guilty

AP via Houston Chronicle ^ | Feb. 10, 2003, 8:39PM | By JONATHAN D. SALANT

[weegee]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Jurors began weighing spy suspect Brian Patrick Regan's guilt or innocence Monday after prosecutors argued that, for $13 million, he would have sold Iraq or Libya "whatever they would have paid for."

Defense attorneys said the information he carried when arrested would not have helped Iraq, Libya or China and could readily have been found in public sources.

The jury deliberated about an hour, then broke for the night. Members were to take today off and resume deliberations on Wednesday.

Regan, of Bowie, Md., has denied that he tried to sell classified information. The retired Air Force master sergeant worked both as a military member and as a civilian employee for defense contractor TRW Inc. at the National Reconnaissance Office, the government's spy satellite agency.

If convicted, he could become the first American executed for spying since 1953, when Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were put to death for conspiring to steal U.S. atomic secrets for the Soviet Union.

Summing up the case against the 40-year-old Regan, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Gillis contended Regan had sent letters that offered to sell top secret intelligence information to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for $13 million. Investigators found the documents on a computer taken from Regan's home.

Regan checked a special e-mail address he had set up to receive responses to the offer, Gillis said.

"He would have given them whatever they would have paid for," Gillis said, pointing at Regan. "Can you imagine what Saddam Hussein could have done with the information he was offering?"

Defense attorney Nina Ginsberg said the prosecution presented no evidence that Regan sent the letters, which were riddled with misspellings and showed no indication they were ever printed.

"The letter which is so damaging in the government's view was never sent to Saddam Hussein," Ginsberg said in her closing argument. "How would this terrible information come into Saddam Hussein's hands?"

Ginsberg said the FBI mishandled the laptop computer, failing to use certain software to ensure that the contents were copied exactly as they were on the hard drive and noting that the letters were not found until six months after Regan's arrest.

Countered Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Haynes in her rebuttal: "Was she implying that the FBI planted those letters? If that's what she was implying, why didn't she just say it?"

Regan was arrested Aug. 23, 2001, at Dulles International Airport near Washington as he was about to fly to Zurich, Switzerland.

Ginsberg said all Regan carried were coded coordinates of Iraqi and Chinese missile sites, the types of missiles spotted there and the dates they were spotted. The classified satellite photos that contained that information had included additional, more sensitive details that Regan had not copied down, she said.

"The information Mr. Regan had with him -- the only thing we know he did for sure -- would not have harmed the United States and would not aid another country," Ginsberg said.

[weegee]

So which is it:

The information wouldn't have helped Iraq, China, and Libya?
The letters weren't written by him?
The letters were never sent?

Next I expect them to point to a Republican President and say "others have done the same or worse". This lawyer's strategy seems to be right out of the Clinton playbook. Deny everything then slowly concede points but then say, "it doesn't really matter anyway and besides..."

Spilling the beans that we know exactly where (with documented coordinates) their missles are is of no security risk to America? Does Ginsberg think that our enemies won't do more to shield their weapons sites a bit more and to relocate weaponry?

Lawyers are paid liars.

[wildbill]

The curious thing is that none of the other, more damaging spies like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hansen, etc. have faced the death penalty. Why this guy? Why not them?

Is he just some poor schmoe who the governmment plans to use as an example because he can't be used later to trade for one of our spies?

I favor death to traitors--but not selection or favoritism.

[weegee]

I agree that it is surprising that the death penalty isn't used more in espionage cases (or with traitors and saboteurs).

Even some nations that claim to outlaw the death penalty reserve its use for such matters.

[weegee]

Consider too that Tim McVeigh got the death penalty but the 1993 WTC bombers did not (and they lived to see their goal accomplished and may have passed along information to other agents through their attorney) and neither did the self-confessed unrepentant shoe bomber.