The Nation - News from July 12, 1985

Saying there would be “a very strong temptation for the defendant to flee,” a federal judge in Baltimore refused to transfer a sailor accused of espionage from jail to a halfway house. Attorneys for Michael Lance Walker, 22, had said his wife’s parents would pledge $97,000 in property to assure his appearance at trial on charges of spying for the Soviet Union. Walker, who was assigned to the aircraft carrier Nimitz, is accused of passing secrets to his father, John A. Walker Jr., 47, of Norfolk, Va., the alleged mastermind of an espionage ring.