BUSTED:
Spanking new Chinese Luyang II class "Aegis" copy cat destroyers
I just hope the rest of the Chicom agents use lawyers as lame as these guys...
Posted on 05/11/2007 5:09:20 AM PDT by Paul Ross
California jury convicts engineer of conspiring to steal U.S. military secrets for China
Friday May 11, 2007
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) After a six-week trial, a federal jury convicted a Chinese-born engineer of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China, including data on an electronic propulsion system that could make submarines virtually undetectable.
Friends and colleagues knew Chi Mak as an unassuming, brilliant man who worked 12-hour days as an engineer for a defense contractor, rarely went out and scrimped to pay off his 700-square-foot suburban home.
Federal prosecutors portrayed Mak as a polished agent for the Chinese who used his low-key lifestyle and good reputation as a cover for his real work conspiring to pass U.S. secrets for more than two decades.
The jury sided with the government, also finding Mak guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.
Prosecutors had dropped a charge of the actual export of defense articles.
Mak stared straight ahead and seemed to hold back tears as the verdict was read. One of his attorneys gently rubbed his back.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples said Mak faces up to 45 years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 10.
``We were confident from the start and we're very happy with the verdict,'' Staples said.
The government accused Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen, of taking thousands of pages of documents from his defense contractor employer, Power Paragon of Anaheim, and giving them to his brother, who passed them along to Chinese authorities over a number of years.
Mak was arrested in 2005 in Los Angeles after FBI agents stopped his brother and sister-in-law as they boarded a flight to Hong Kong.
Investigators said they found three encrypted CDs in their luggage that contained documents on a submarine propulsion system, a solid-state power switch for ships and a Power Point presentation on the future of power electronics.
Mak acknowledged during the trial that he copied classified documents from his employer and kept copies in his office. He maintained he didn't realize that making the copies was illegal.
Chi Mak's wife, brother and other relatives also have been indicted and go on trial together on June 5. Staples said the government may use the verdict to try to negotiate plea bargains with Mak's indicted family members, who pleaded not guilty.
Defense attorneys Marilyn Bednarski and Ronald Kaye said they would appeal the verdict, insisting the government had manipulated the facts.
In many instances, the government was allowed to present classified information to U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in his chambers, and the defense team was not allowed to view the government's application for a warrant to bug Mak's house and car, Kaye said.
``It is so absurd to believe that he has been passing technology for 20 years when they had not one witness and not one piece of paper to corroborate this,'' Kaye said.
The trial featured testimony from FBI agents, U.S. Navy officials, encryption and espionage experts and the engineer himself.
Key to the trial was the government's allegation that Mak confessed to the conspiracy and even named his so-called ``handler'' and specific restricted documents during an untaped jailhouse interview two days after his arrest.
Mak testified he never confessed during that interview, but admitted on cross-examination that he lied repeatedly in an earlier taped interview about the number of times he had visited China and when he told authorities he didn't have friends or relatives there. He said he felt intimidated during the interrogation.
``This is why I lied,'' he said. ``They were pushing me that night.''
Mak's attorneys focused on a paper he had written on the propulsion system that was found in his brother's luggage at Los Angeles International Airport.
Mak said he believed he was doing nothing wrong by giving the paper to his brother to take out of the country because he had written it for Power Paragon and had presented it at an engineering conference in 2004.
The government, however, alleged the documents were export-controlled and couldn't fall into foreigners' hands.
The unusually humble life-style makes it rather clear he was not "vested" in living in the U.S. ...but was saving his wad for his real home...China.
He was busted before he and his family could make their get-away. They likely already knew that the heat was coming.
The smart thing from our standpoint is to assume the worst...and that he already successfully relayed all of this information secretly back to his PLA Chicom masters in Beijing by some other as yet undetected route... think how easy it would be to plant a couple small CDs inside of a select COSCO or China Shipping container that was DEAD-HEADING empty back to China...never inspected...no one would be the wiser.
BUSTED:
I just hope the rest of the Chicom agents use lawyers as lame as these guys...
How can we be so sure? They already have Magnequench in its entirety....and all that entails. Plus they have a huge leap on us in their espionage-pirated info on our top-secret Terfenol-D materials. And they are already selling commercial products therefrom...what do you think this coup did for their ultra-secret military applications? They have already boasted about their acoustic sensor tech matching ours.
And as a perfect illustration of their total success at getting the whole enchilada of our technology advantage and not just producing it...but shutting down our own production...look at how they manipulated ITT into illegally outsourcing the whole kit and kaboodle of our Night Vision production to them...
We need to actually treat China for what it is: A Mortal Enemy...and stop laughing off their "lack of werewithal" to produce the stuff they have stolen.
There we agree. We need to send a message.
Is there any picture of these brothers..?
Lack if wherewithal to produce? Some people (not you) are smoking crack.
For the past 15 years, China has been on a crash course learning how build everything. AMERICAN COMPANIES ARE HAVING NEARLY EVERYTHING BUILT IN CHINA.
They aren’t stupid. They will quickly learn to get their “wherewithal” up to speed pretty quick.
You know, I've wondered about that too. The PLA must have decided its a lot cheaper to use their own agents than pay the going rate to the Xlintons.
Nope. Agreed. THEY aren't stupid...but I fear that the people making the "business" decisions here...are.
The Chinese will copy anybody’s assembly, regardless of patent protection, and produce it cheaply, driving the original producer (owner) out of business.
Can they just copy the entire US of A, and get gun rights correct this time?
Tai Wang Mak
A useful resource for tracking these Chicom espionage cases: Counter Intel Center
I agree.
Impossible that he didn't know it.
The chinese probably don’t trust Clinton either. :<)
Thanks for posting this, Paul. Other than Lou Dobbs I don’t think it got any TV coverage.
Richard Perle -- one of the infamous "neo-cons" who has been a cheerleader for U.S. empire-building efforts all over the globe over the last decade -- had the unusual distinction of getting fired twice from the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. He was first fired as head of the board in 2003 over his incompetence with regard to Iraq, then thrown out on his @ss entirely in 2004 when it became publicly known that he was lobbying U.S. Defense Department officials to secure waivers for technology transfers to Red China while he had top-secret security clearance in the Pentagon.
If this country doesn't have the will to put f#%&ers like Richard Perle behind bars, then Chi Mak shouldn't even spend an hour in jail.
That was easy...
L
Half the Chinese here are spying on us.
(The other half are spying on them)...
Him, and so many more.
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