CIA AGENT FELT ARRESTS UNLIKELY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100010043-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 25, 2011
• Sequence Number: 43
• Publication Date: November 14, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91-00587ROO0100010043-5
LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY
14 November 1985
CIA Agent Felt
Arrests Unlikely
A CIA agent said yesterday that he was con-
vinced that former CIA translator Karl Koecher
would not be arrested when he promised Koecher
and his wife their freedom in exchange for testi-
mony on their suspected espionage activities.
"It was a foregone conclusion on my part," said
Jerry Brown, thief of the CIA's counterinteiii-
gence division. " . . Everything I said was
within the context that this was going to happen.
I was convinced of that"
Testifying at a preliminary hearing to suppress
27 reels of recorded conversations between
Koecher and federal intelligence officials, Brown
said he was unaware that Koecher might be pros-
ecuted until four or five days after he and FBI
agent Kenneth Geide began questioning Koecher
on Nov. 15, 1984, in a midtown Manhattan hotel.
The testimony completed four days of hearings
before U.S. District Court Judge Shirley Wohl
Kram in Manhattan, who made no immediate
ruling.
Koecher and his wife, Hana, were arrested last
Nov. 27 as they prepared to leave the country for
Vienna. He has been accused of spying for com-
munist Czechoslovakia while employed by the
CIA from 1974 to 1977.
Brown admitted promising Koecher and his
wife that they would be free to leave the country
in exchange for information. He also said that he
led Koecher to believe "we were more than satisi-
fied" with the information Koecher gave them.
He said that his promises of safe passage were
sincere because, to his knowledge, the FBI had
insufficient information to arrest Koecher and "I
had no means cf stopping him" from traveling to
Vienna. He later admitted he was not authorized
to promise Koecher immunity from prosecution,
but he never told Koecher he lacked that author-
ity.
Brown said he first learned of possible plans to
prosecute Xoecher from FBI agent Ted Booth. Be-
cause of his concern, Brown said that he and Geide
met with their superiors in Washington on Nov.
20. After that meeting, the FBI had Koecher sign
seven documents stating he had been made no
promises, according to earlier testimony. Defense
attorneys are trying to suppress those waivers.
In other testimony, FBI agent Richard J. Dorn
Jr. testified he told Koecher's wife that she would
be free to leave the country. Dorn said he had no
authority to grant immunity, but made the state.
ment to Indus. hdr oooporstion.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/25: CIA-RDP91-00587ROO0100010043-5