JEFFRIES PLEADS GUILTY TO SPYING COUNT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210013-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: January 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210013-9
tr1ASHINGTON POST
24 January 1986
Jeffries Pleads Guilty to Spying Count
Transcribing Firm Employe Could Get 10 Years for Transferring House Documents
Armed Services subcommittee According to testimony in earlier
By Ruth Marcus hearing about sensitive military court hearings in the Jeffries case, a
W,shinaton Poet Staff Writer communications programs, prose- "sensitive source" overheard a se-
cutors said. ries of telephone calls that Jeffries
A messenger for a District com- Jeffries, of 143 Rhode Island Ave. made to the Soviet Military office
pany that transcribes closed con- NW, was indicted on the two counts at 2552 Belmont Rd. NW, and
ressional hearings pleaded guilty of espionage last week, and was to word-for-word transcripts of parts
in federal court here yesterday to a have been arraigned on the charges of the calls were quoted in the plea
single count of espionage-WI a yesterday morning. Instead, he en- document filed yesterday.
maximum sentence of years in tered the guilty plea. Intelligence agencies routinely
prison-in return for the govern- The Jeffries case focused atten- monitor telephone calls to Soviet
ment's promise to drop a more se- tion on the-handling of classified installations here, but officials are
rious charge against him. information on Capitol Hill and by extremely reluctant to disclose the
Randy Miles Jeffries, 26, pleaded private reporting companies after various techniques through which
guilty to delivering national defense testimony that FBI agents who ? the calls are intercepted or even
documents to a person not entitled searched Acme found secret and acknowledge publicly t aL suc
top secret documents torn into monitoring takes place.
to receive them. In return, prose- quarters and placed in a large trash
cutors agreed to drop . another barrel. Such documents are sup- Concern over t Fe strength of the
charge, which carries a potential posed to be disposed of by burning government's case was also a major
sentence of life in prison, of deliv- or reducing them to pulp. factor in the decision to accept the
ering and attempting to deliver na- House General Counsel Steven plea to the lesser count, sources
tional defense documents to Soviet Ross said yesterday he would rec- familiar with the case said. FBI
agents. ommend that, "to the fullest extent agents arrested Jeffries before he
U.S. District Court Judge Ger- possible," transcribers on the House actually delivered any documents to
hard A. Gesell did not set a date for staff handle all classified hearings "Vlad." Quander, the friend to
sentencing, but he refused to free and that, if no in-house reporter is whom Jeffries said he gave the doc-
Jeffries on bond. "It's inconceivable available, the outside reporter do uments for safekeeping, destroyed
that there would not be some kind the transcription work on the Hill, them shortly before Jeffries' arrest
of sentence involving jail time," Ge- rather than removing the docu- because he felt "uneasy about the
sell said. "If he's going to have to ments. situation," according to the plea
serve time, he'd better get started The Justice Department has gen- document.
erally taken a hard fine in the spate Quander, who according to the
on it." of recent espionage cases. Assistant document drove Jeffries on one
If Jeffries receives the maximum Attorney General Stephen S. Trott, plea
sentence of 10 years, he would be who heads the Justice Depart- of his trips to the Soviet Military
eligible for parole after serving 3V3 ment's criminal division, said the Office, received immunity from
years. He could also be fined up to plea arrangement "accurately de- prosecution in return for testifying
$250,000. U.S. Attorney Joseph E. scribes what the man did and ex- before a federal grand jury inves-
diGenova said prosecutors would poses him to a sufficient penalty tigating the case, according to Jef-
ask "for what the statute provides" structure so he can pay the price." fries' defense lawyer, G. Allen Dale.
at the sentencing hearing. He said the harm that might have Jeffries told the undercover FBI
Jeffries told Gesell that the per- been done by Jeffries was "absolute- agent that he had already met twice
son to whom he gave the docu- ly' less than that inflicted by con- with the Soviets and given them
victed spy Arthur James Walker. more than 60 "sample pages" of the
Qmeatsuander. was a The friend goverrnmennment con- - Kevin Walker, the brother of convicted documents, FBI agent Michael Gi-
tended in its plea document, how- spy John Anthony Walker Jr., glia testified at earlier court hear-
ever, that Jeffries said he had ac- passed to the Soviets two reports ings.
tually passed portions of the doc- classified "confidential," the lowest But Dale said, "We have not
uments to the Soviets. category of classified information. backed down from our position that
Jeffries, a messenger at Acme Asked why prosecutors agreed to he did not give and did not intend to
Reporting Co., was arrested Dec. drop the more serious charge give documents to the Soviets. We
20 at a downtown motel after offer- a ainst a rles, Attorney di- had said all along that yes, he gave
ing to sell an undercover FBI agent, Genova said after the brief cour the documents to his friend. There
posing as a Soviet operative named proceedin "in any espionage case really was no defense to that."
"Vlad," copies of three classified ... one of the many consi era Ions
documents for $5,000. One of the that o into it are protecting ...
documents was a transcript, sources and methods." - { -.
marked "top secret," of a House
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210013-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210013-9
1
According to the plea document
by diGenova and Assistant U.S. At-
torney Rhonda C. Fields, the top
secret hearing transcript involved
"discussion of major military system
initiatives and procurements, a joint
net assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of the United States
versus the Soviets in weaponry" and
communications, and the security of
U.S. military communications.
Donald C. Latham, assistant sec-
retary of defense for command,
control, communications and intel-
ligence, who testified at the House
hearing, "would have testified [in
court] that disclosure of this infor-
mation could cause exceptionally
grave damage to the United
States."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504210013-9