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Timeline: High-profile U.S. spy cases of the last two decades

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The arrest of retired Air Force Sgt. Brian Regan this week marks the latest in a series of alleged spy cases in the United States.

In the last two decades alone, a slew of U.S. citizens, military personnel and government workers have been accused -- and, in several cases, convicted -- of personally inflicting serious harm on national security and intelligence by working as spies for other countries.

Among the alleged and convicted spies -- including the dates of their arrests and the details of their cases:

Hanssen

2001: Robert Hanssen
A 25-year veteran of the FBI, Hanssen took $1.4 million in cash and diamonds in return for passing along U.S. secrets to Moscow. The secrets included the identities of U.S. spies, highly classified eavesdropping technology and nuclear war plans, according to the indictment against him.

As part of a plea agreement reached in July, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy. U.S. officials also expelled four senior Russian diplomats linked to the case in March, one month after Hanssen's arrest.




Trofimoff

2000: George Trofimoff
In June, Trofimoff became the highest-ranking U.S. military officer ever convicted of spying. A colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve when he retired in 1994, Trofimoff had been charged with passing military secrets to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The German-born Trofimoff had served as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army in Germany during much of his 35-year career in military intelligence. Trofimoff was also accused of conspiring to sell U.S. military secrets to the KGB -- the Soviet spy agency -- for more than 20 years beginning in 1969, and prosecutors said the Soviets awarded him the Order of the Red Banner for his service.




Faget

2000: Mariano Faget
Authorities arrested Faget, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service official, on February 17, 2000, a month before his scheduled retirement. Three months later, the Cuban-born Miami district officer faced up to 10 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act.

Faget was found guilty of revealing classified information to a friend with ties to Cuba. As part of an FBI sting operation, Faget was fed phony classified information about a Cuban official who was about to defect. He was warned that the information was secret, but no secret material actually was divulged.




Wen Ho Lee

1999: Wen Ho Lee
Federal officials accused Lee, a government scientist, of spying for the Chinese in his job as a physicist at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, nuclear laboratory.

A 59-count federal indictment alleged that Lee failed to safeguard classified information adequately by downloading top-secret data into a non-secure computer, although it stopped short of espionage charges. After nine months in jail awaiting trial, Lee was freed after an FBI agent testified he had been given false testimony. A federal judge sharply criticized the government's handling of the case, as did civil liberties organizations, which accused authorities of targeting Lee because of his Asian heritage.




1999: Jean-Philippe Wispelaere
A former Australian military intelligence analyst, the U.S. government said Wispelaere sold hundreds of classified documents to an agent posing as a spy. Having worked on an Australian defense program that cooperates with U.S. intelligence agencies on top-secret defense projects, U.S. officials say Wispelaere abruptly resigned in January 1999 and six days later tried to sell classified information in Thailand.

Wispelaere pleaded not guilty in a Virginia federal court, but he was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.




Boone

1998: David Boone:
A former Army signals analyst for the National Security Agency, Boone was arrested in October 1998 and charged with selling classified documents to the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991, including a list of Russian sites targeted by U.S. nuclear weapons.

According to the FBI, Boone was under financial difficulties and volunteered his services to the Soviets by walking into the Soviet Embassy in Washington in October 1988. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in February 1999 and was sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison.




1998: Douglas F. Groat
Fired from the CIA in 1996 after 16 years of service, Groat was indicted in April 1998 on espionage and extortion charges. Groat, who had worked for the CIA's "black bag" unit that breaks into embassies to steal code books, avoided trial and received a five-year sentence in 1998.




squillacote

1997: Squillacote, Stand and Clark
U.S. authorities learned about the spy ring involving college buddies Theresa Marie Squillacote, husband Kurt Alan Stand and friend James Michael Clark several years after the collapse of East Germany in the late 1980s.

A CIA agent implicated Squillacote in 1997 for having and revealing top-secret military documents. By 1998, all three individuals had been convicted and were serving jail terms between 12 and 21 years.




Nicholson

1996: Harold Nicholson
Like Regan, Nicholson was arrested at Dulles International Airport outside Washington while attempting to board a flight to Switzerland. Federal prosecutors said he was carrying 10 rolls of film of classified documents at the time of his arrest, as well as still-uncracked coded messages on a computer disk. They say he was planning to meet his Russian handlers, who would pay him more than $180,000.

Nicholson pleaded guilty to attempted espionage and conspiracy to commit espionage in 1997, and is currently serving a 23-year prison term.




Pitts

1996: Edwin Earl Pitts
A 13-year veteran of the FBI, Pitts contacted the KGB in 1987 to offer his services and continued selling secrets to the Russians until 1992. Tipped off by a Russian double agent, an FBI sting operation implicated Pitts and led to his arrest in December 1996.

Pitts, who supposedly received $224,000 from the Russians for his services, pleaded guilty to espionage charges in 1997 and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.




1996: Robert Kim
Authorities arrested Kim, a former Navy computer specialist, at a diplomatic reception at Fort Myer, Virginia, later charging him with passing classified information to a South Korean navy captain.

Originally indicted on three espionage charges, Kim pleaded guilty to a reduced conspiracy charge, letting the government avoid a trial that threatened to reveal highly sensitive secrets. Kim was sentenced to nine years in jail in July 1997.




Rice

1994: Aldrich Ames
Many experts now call Ames the most damaging turncoat in U.S. history -- at least until Hanssen's case came to light. Ames began selling U.S. secrets to the KGB in 1985, when he was head of the CIA's Soviet counterintelligence unit.

Working with his wife, Ames revealed more than 100 covert operations, betrayed at least 30 agents and played a role in the execution of 10 U.S. operatives by the Soviets -- all for more than $2.7 million. He was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison.




1985: Robert Pelton
A low-level communications specialist at the National Security Agency for 14 years, Pelton was arrested for selling secrets to the Soviets. His most damaging disclosure related to a top-secret U.S. operation aimed at recording Soviet communications.

Pelton was convicted in 1986 on two counts of espionage and one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences.




Pollard

1985: Jonathan Jay Pollard
Unlike most other U.S. spies who worked with American enemies, Pollard was arrested and convicted for selling classified information to a staunch ally, Israel, while a civilian employee at the Naval Intelligence Service. Like Ames, he partnered with his wife in the sale of state secrets; his wife was sentenced to five years, Pollard to life in prison.

Since his conviction in 1986, Israel has lobbied U.S. administrations to pardon Pollard. President Clinton considered doing so in 1998, only to pull back after CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign if Pollard was pardoned.




1985: Walker family
Retired Navy warrant officer John Walker's 18-year spy odyssey encompassed not only the Soviet Union, but his son and brother. Ironically, his ex-wife tipped the FBI to his activities, which included sales of information to the Soviets, including data on encryption devices that compromised U.S. communications.

In late 1985, Walker pleaded guilty to espionage charges and was sentenced to two life terms plus 10 years. His son, Michael, got 25 years; his brother, Arthur James, life in prison; and a Navy colleague, Jerry Whitworth, 365 years.




1985: Edward Lee Howard
Howard was one of the few accused U.S. citizens-turned-spies not to face a court of law in the United States -- instead fleeing to Moscow while under FBI surveillance.

Howard allegedly sold secrets to the Soviets after being forced to resign from the CIA in June 1983 because of drinking and other problems. He fled before he could be arrested, and the Soviet Union granted him political asylum.




1985: Larry Wu-tai Chin
Authorities arrested Chin -- an intelligence officer in the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service -- in 1985 and accused him of spying for China for more than 30 years.

A federal court convicted Chin on 17 espionage and tax charges. But before he could be sentenced, Chin killed himself in his jail cell by placing a plastic bag over his head.




1984: Richard William Miller
Miller was a Los Angeles-based FBI agent when he was arrested for passing classified documents to two pro-Soviet immigrants -- who themselves were arrested and pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

After a mistrial in 1984 and a conviction was overturned in 1989, Miller was convicted in a third trial and sentenced to 20 years in 1991. He was released three years later, however, after a federal judge reduced his sentence.


-- U.S. Defense Security Services material was used in this report.





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RELATED SITES:
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Central Intelligence Agency
• U.S. Department of State

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