The Los Angeles Times reports on the sentencing of a Chinese-born aerospace engineer who worked in Southern California on charges of spying for China:
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in Santa Ana imposed a 188-month prison term on Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Orange.
Carney declared that he could not “put a price tag” on national security and sought to send a signal to China to “stop sending your spies here,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Chung, who worked at Boeing’s Huntington Beach plant, denied being a spy and said he was gathering documents for a book, not for espionage. His attorneys argued that much of the material was already available on the public record.
…Whether loyalty to his homeland or financial gain was Chung’s motive remained unclear. The case is one of a number of prosecutions that have shed light on alleged Chinese efforts to gain access to U.S. technology and research through espionage.
