JURIST - Paper Chase: DOD official pleads guilty to China espionage charge

[JURIST] A US Department of Defense official pleaded guilty [DOJ press release] Monday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] to one count of conspiracy for disclosing national defense information. Gregg William Bergersen, an analyst at the DOD's Defense Security Cooperation Agency [official website], who was charged [affidavit, PDF] and arrested [JURIST report] in February, is accused of providing classified military information to Tai Kuo, a Louisiana businessman, who in turn gave the information to a Chinese foreign official. A sentencing hearing has been set for June; Bergersen could face up to 10 years in prison.

The same day that Bergersen was arrested, officials also arrested Dongfan "Greg" Chung, a former Chinese-American engineer at Boeing [corporate website], for allegedly stealing corporate trade secrets related to the space shuttle and other aerospace programs and turning them over to China [JURIST news archive]. Chung's arrest was reportedly related to the case of Chi Mak [CI Centre backgrounder; JURIST report], a Chinese-American engineer sentenced [JURIST report] last month for conspiring to smuggle sensitive naval intelligence data to China. AP has more.

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