From: Bridget973@aol.com Subject: IP: Fwd: [Spooks] CIA Operative sentenced to five years imprisonment Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:03:52 EDT To: ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com http://www.abcnews.com/wire/US/AP19980925_1626.html AP News Service WASHINGTON (AP) _ A former CIA operative was sentenced to five years in prison today for trying to extort $1 million from the agency in exchange for his silence about government eavesdropping operations. Douglas Fred Groat, 51, pleaded guilty to the extortion charge in July. As part of the plea agreement, federal prosecutors dropped four counts of espionage, including charges that Groat told two foreign governments the CIA had cracked their coded communications. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said Groat's actions appeared to stem from his ``almost becoming obsessed'' about a job dispute with the CIA. ``I don't think at any time you really had any intention of trying to harm our national security,'' Hogan said. The judge said he would recommend housing Groat in a minimum-security prison and ordered him to serve three years of supervised release after completing his sentence. Groat, a burly, bearded man, did not speak in the courtroom except to clarify part of his written statement to the court, which was not immediately released. He said that in complaining about the ``harsh conditions of my solitary confinement,'' he did not mean to imply that any federal officials treated him harshly. His lawyer, public defender Robert L. Tucker, said the case was ``a shame'' and that Groat's actions ``everybody would agree had their genesis in a dispute with the CIA about employment.'' Prosecutors said in July a trial in the case could have forced them to disclose sensitive national security information. Groat agreed to help the government sort out whether his activities damaged national security, and he promised to submit any books, articles or interviews to federal officials for security review. Prosecutor Ron Walutes told Hogan the government was ``fully satisfied'' with Groat's cooperation since his guilty plea on July 27. Groat, a former employee of the CIA division that develops eavesdropping plans and code-breaking technology, worked for the CIA from 1980 until he was fired in October 1996. Early in his career, he served as a field operative participating in break-ins of foreign embassies. In a summary agreed to in July by Groat, prosecutors said he sent a series of letters to the CIA in 1996 and 1997 demanding $1 million and saying that in return he would not engage in ``any activities which may hinder present or future intelligence gathering efforts.'' Officials did not identify the two countries Groat had been accused of aiding. Groat was held without bail since he was arrested in April. He will be able to collect his CIA pension when he turns 62. He could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Groat had been the third current or former CIA employee arrested on espionage charges in the past four years. However, he was lower-ranking than Alrich Ames and Harold Nicholson, who pleaded guilty and are imprisoned for selling secrets to Moscow. Copyright 1998 AP News Service. All rights reserved --- Submissions should be sent to spooks@qth.net To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe spooks" to majordomo@qth.net -- bridget973@aol.com Black Helicopters on the Horizon: http://members.xoom.com/bridget973 ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************