Courthouse News – “A former CIA officer who conspired to sell defense secrets to the Chinese could receive life in prison when he goes before a federal judge for sentencing Thursday.”
Kevin Patrick Mallory was arrested in late June 2017 before he could embark on what would have been, if successfully boarded, his third trip to travel to Shanghai intending to Chinese spies claiming they were employed at the Shanghai Academy of Science to sell “white papers he wrote for $25,000.”
“Facing mounting bills, $30,000 in credit card debt and imminent foreclosure of his home, Mallory decided to take the risk.”
After his arrest, appearing in federal court and charged under the federal Espionage Act, Mallory’s bond was revoked by US District Judge T. Ellis, finding him “a flight risk and a threat to national security if released,” saying, “He’s a little cleverer than most.”
On June 5, 2018, at Mallory’s trial, “a former Defense Intelligence Agency official [retired undersecretary Hugh Michael Higgins] told jurors … that if the records ex-CIA contractor Kevin Mallory is accused of divulging to the Chinese did indeed wind up in the hands of foreign adversaries, the impact to U.S. national security interests could be deadly.”
Mallory’s defense lawyer, public defender Geremy Kamens, argued that the “information Mallory shared with his Chinese contacts was “innocuous,” mostly generalized “gibberish” about internal Defense Department policies already available in the public domain,” and that it was Mallory’s intent “to expose the Chinese businessmen as intelligence operatives working undercover at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.”
“During a voluntary interview with the CIA and FBI, Mallory inadvertently exposed his communications with his Chinese contact, Michael Yang.”
After a week-long trial, on June 8, 2018 a jury found Mallory guilty.
Jurors found Mallory guilty of conspiracy to deliver classified defense material, attempt to deliver the material, actually delivering the documents and making false statements to law enforcement.
In July 2018, Mallory filed to have some of the charges dropped, citing the prosecution “failed to provide evidence supporting the conspiracy charge, wrongfully denied his request for a ‘buyer-seller instruction’ in connection with that charge and that government’s evidence was “insufficient to support a finding of venue” related to the actual and attempted delivery of classified material.”
Ellis in part agreed and tossed two of the charges.
Mallory will be sentenced Thursday in Alexandria at 1 p.m.
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