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Retired U.S. Air Force Serviceman Arrested for Spying
WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (News Agencies) - A retired U.S. Air Force serviceman was formally charged with conspiracy to commit espionage in a Virginia federal court Friday, the U.S. attorney's office told news agencies.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Brian Regan, 38, late Thursday as he was about to catch a flight to Zurich, Switzerland at the Washington-area's Dulles International Airport, a statement from the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI said.
"Today we charged him with conspiracy to commit espionage at his initial appearance before the magistrate judge," U.S. Attorney for eastern Virginia Kenneth Melson told Agence France-Presse. "The United States requested that the defendant be held without bond."
Melson said the complaint alleges Regan conspired to transmit classified U.S. national defense information to a person he believed was an agent of a foreign government "with the intent to injure the United States or aid the foreign country."
The U.S. attorney declined to disclose the country or countries involved in the case, nor would he assess damages at this point.
A detention hearing has been set for August 29. Regan could face life in prison on the conspiracy charge, or if certain factors exist, the death penalty, Melson said.
Regan, who retired from the Air Force in August 2000, was working with a government contractor assigned to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Virginia, where he had access to classified information.
The NRO - an agency of the Department of Defense - designs, builds and operates U.S.A reconnaissance satellites, according to the organization's website.
CIA and military personnel staff the organization, which was a secret until 1992.
According to an affidavit, Regan served in the Air Force from August 1980 until retiring in August 2000. He was trained in cryptanalysis and his responsibilities included administering the Intelink Web site, a classified U.S. government computer system accessible only to certain members of the U.S. intelligence community.
His access to this information was terminated in August 2000 when he retired from the Air Force, but it was reinstated in July, when he went back to work at NRO as an employee of TRW, a government contractor in Fairfax, Virginia.
Authorities said that on Thursday morning, while Regan was in a meeting at NRO, the FBI searched his Dodge Caravan and found a carryon bag that contained encrypted messages and handwritten addresses and phone numbers for unnamed foreign countries' diplomatic offices in Switzerland and Austria.
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