Outburst Disrupts Miller Spy Trial : Husband of Government Witness Denounces Ex-FBI Man

The husband of a government witness testifying against accused Soviet spy Richard W. Miller stunned a federal jury Friday by leaping to his feet and launching into a tirade against the ex-FBI agent before half a dozen U.S. marshals forcibly removed him from the courtroom.

Glenn Generaux began his brief outburst just as his wife, Donna, had concluded testifying about the financial details of a real estate transaction with Miller and his family in 1976.

“I don’t need a microphone to tell this court that Mr. Miller’s financial difficulties don’t mitigate in any way what he did,” Generaux shouted, as marshals raced toward him.

He later protested outside the courtroom, “We need the death penalty.”

Donna Generaux had just finished describing the sale of 20 acres of land in Valley Center in northern San Diego County to Miller and his in-laws for $130,000 in 1976, saying she had trouble collecting the monthly payments on the property in the years that followed.

Two hours before Glenn Generaux disrupted the proceedings, he had told two reporters in the courtroom to anticipate something dramatic, saying to one: “Stick around. There’s going to be some yelling here pretty soon.” He also telephoned The Times with a similar message.

Out of the presence of the jury, U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon said he had not decided yet what to do about Generaux’s outburst. He observed that he had the power to issue a contempt citation but said he did not want to make a “mountain out of molehill.”

Miller’s lawyers, Joel Levine and Stanley Greenberg, asked Kenyon to recall Donna Generaux to ask her if she knew in advance that her husband had planned the courtroom scene, saying that if she did know, it would be clear proof of bias against Miller.

“My first reaction is the jurors probably don’t know who he was or what he said,” Kenyon responded. “My impression was he might have been in Mr. Miller’s corner. I’m being a little wishy-washy, because I haven’t thought it out.”

The outburst came at the end of the first week of Miller’s trial on charges that he passed secret FBI documents to the Soviet Union. Svetlana and Nikolai Ogorodnikov pleaded guilty June 25 in an earlier trial to conspiring with Miller.

For the third straight day, Kenyon expressed irritation with Miller’s lawyers for asking if he had reconsidered an edict banning Miller’s defense investigator, Albert Sayers, from sitting with them at the defense table, because Greenberg had identified Sayers as one of Miller’s former FBI supervisors.

When Levine began to ask if Kenyon had thought about the question in light of a memorandum saying there was a “compelling need” for Sayers to be at the defense table, because of his experience with the Miller case, Kenyon snapped:

“I’m getting tired of it. I thought I was being more than gracious. Everybody doesn’t understand and everybody keeps pushing.”

Greenberg, questioning Patrick Mullany, senior administrative assistant of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, started the day by attempting to establish that a two-hour meeting between Mullany and Miller last Sept. 12, purportedly arranged to discuss Miller’s weight problems, was actually a ploy to keep Miller occupied while other FBI agents installed a recording device in Miller’s car.

While no mention of the bugging was made by Greenberg, it was disclosed during the earlier trial of the Ogorodnikovs that Miller’s car was bugged Sept. 12. One source told The Times that it takes about two hours to install the type of device planted in Miller’s car.

“Was there any other purpose to your meeting? Were you instructed to keep him busy for a couple of hours? Were you given some instructions to keep Mr. Miller busy for a certain amount of time?” Greenberg asked.

Mullany conceded there was another purpose to the meeting, besides discussing Miller’s weight, but Kenyon shut off Greenberg’s line of questioning as being beyond the scope of Mullany’s direct testimony about Miller’s personnel history. The judge said the FBI official could be recalled later if the issue was judged to be of relevance.

A dozen witnesses were called by U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner and Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman in the first week of Miller’s trial, which will resume Monday.