Ex-FBI Agent Enters Plea in Espionage Case

A former FBI agent who once faced up to 15 years in federal prison for allegedly tipping off a family friend that he was suspected of spying for the Chinese pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor offense Wednesday.

In a deal with the government, Denise K. Woo, 47, will be sentenced to a year of probation and a $1,000 fine. She had faced five felony counts, including revealing the identity of an FBI informant, telling a friend that he had been wiretapped and lying to the FBI about the leaks. The terms of her deal must be approved by U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner.

Woo’s attorney, Michael Camunez, said the government case was overblown and contended that the FBI itself was guilty of misconduct in the counterespionage investigation.

“They threw the book at her,” Camunez said. “Nothing she did compromised national security or the ... investigation. Her mistake pales in comparison to the gross mismanagement of the FBI in putting her in an undercover investigative role without any training.”

Prosecutors and FBI spokespersons declined to comment on the case.

In court Wednesday, Woo admitted revealing the identity of a confidential informant for the FBI to a friend she had been assigned to monitor.

She also admitted that she knew she was not authorized by law to disclose the information.

According to Camunez, Woo was an FBI agent working in white-collar investigations when the bureau discovered in 1999 that she was a friend of a target of the Chinese counterintelligence squad.

Woo tried to tell supervisors that her friend, who has not been charged, was innocent, but her “substantial concerns” were ignored, her lawyers said. She told him about the informant only after she determined that he wasn’t really a spy, her lawyers said.

The FBI’s Chinese counterintelligence squad during these years was in disarray. Its lead agent, James J. Smith, retired in 2000.

Three years later, Smith was indicted after his longtime lover, an FBI informant named Katrina Leung, was accused of being a double agent for China.

Smith was charged with covering up his lover’s misdeeds, but later pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of lying about having an extramarital affair. He was put on probation.

Leung, who maintained her innocence, was charged with illegally possessing classified materials to use against the U.S. government. But a judge dismissed the case because of government misconduct.

In December, Leung pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return and lying to the FBI.

She also received a sentence of probation.

The Department of Justice inspector general concluded this month that management failures in the FBI’s Los Angeles office and at headquarters in Washington, D.C., contributed to the problems with Smith and Leung.

The FBI suspended Woo for four years, and fired her in 2003. Her plea agreement came just weeks before her June 27 trial date, which would have forced the government to disclose classified information, Camunez said.

After seven years of fighting federal authorities over a friend she thought was innocent, Woo is ready to have her life back, her lawyers said.

“Poor Denise just like stumbled into this snake pit of double agents and espionage,” said defense attorney Carolyn Kubota. “You just know that there’s something else out there, but you don’t know what it is. Maybe, someday, this stuff will be declassified.”