Spying Case Tossed Out

[realFedUp]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-katrina7jan07,1,3939111.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Spying Case Tossed Out
Federal judge scolds prosecutors in her dismissal of criminal charges against a woman accused of working as a Chinese double agent.
By David Rosenzweig
Times Staff Writer

January 7, 2005

Charging prosecutors with willful and deliberate misconduct, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed all criminal charges against a former FBI informant accused of serving as a Chinese double agent.

In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper blasted the U.S. attorney's office for "conduct unbecoming a prosecutorial agency." Attorneys for Chinese American businesswoman Katrina Leung had accused the government of illegally and unethically exacting a commitment from her former FBI handler that barred him from talking to the defense. The pledge was contained in an agreement that retired agent James J. Smith reached with the government last year, allowing him to plead guilty to a reduced charge of failing to report his 20-year-long sexual affair with Leung.

Under long-established rules, prosecutors are prohibited from obstructing a defendant's access to witnesses. At a hearing before Cooper last month, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Emmick disavowed any intent to prevent Smith from speaking to Leung's defense team. He blamed "inartful" language in Smith's plea agreement. But Cooper cited a Nov. 18 e-mail message to Emmick from Robert Wallace, senior trial counsel in the Justice Department's counterintelligence section in Washington, saying that the wording was aimed at "preventing Smith from being interviewed by Leung's counsel because he is a repository of classified information."

"In the face of that e-mail," Cooper wrote, "anything short of an admission and apology on the part of the government is hard to imagine. Mr. Emmick did neither. Rather, he chose to ignore the e-mail."

continued....

(you'd think that the US Attorney's office worked to get
this case thrown out...too bad Wen Ho Lee didn't get the same
velvet glove treatment as Ms. Leung has and we'll never know
now whether she indeed was a spy for the Chinese while working
for us.) There's more to this story than just this one that appeared
not on the main page section, but in the California section of
the Times.

[realFedUp]

1. This one definitely needs investigation

by more than one source.

[Moderator]

2. duplicate

locking

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1128296