Outburst Disrupts Miller Spy Trial : ‘We Need the Death Penalty,’ Witness’s Husband Screams

A man rose from the courtroom audience Friday and screamed denunciations of Richard W. Miller during the former FBI agent’s espionage trial and was wrestled out by marshals while the astonished jury watched.

The man, Glenn Generaux, husband of witness Donna Generaux, began shouting as his wife left the stand.

“I don’t need a microphone,” he suddenly announced. “Mr. Miller’s financial difficulties don’t mitigate what he did!”

Donna Generaux had been testifying about Miller’s financial troubles.

As Generaux shouted, six U.S. marshals pounced on him, wrestled his hands behind his back and hustled him out of the court.

‘Need Death Penalty’

He continued to shout in the hallway, “You have no idea what kind of character he is!”

Generaux’s distraught wife rushed after him, telling marshals, “Be careful! He just had an operation!”

Generaux, who by then was in tears, told the marshals, “We need the death penalty.”

He was hustled to a nearby room where he was questioned and released minutes later.

Marshals said he would not be detained, and it would be decided later whether he would be cited for disrupting the trial.

Miller, 48, is on trial in federal court on charges that he arranged to pass government secrets to the Soviet Union through a Russian emigre woman, Svetlana Ogorodnikova, who became his lover.

Faces Life in Prison

Ogorodnikova and her husband, Nikolai, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the midst of their earlier espionage trial. They have been sentenced to prison and the woman is a potential witness against Miller, the first FBI agent ever charged with espionage. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon ordered jurors to ignore the outburst, and the trial resumed. During a lunch break, Generaux told a reporter: “Stick around. There’s going to be some yelling here pretty soon.”

Just before her husband’s disruption, Donna Generaux cried on the witness stand as she told jurors about her difficulties in collecting payments from Miller and his wife after they bought a piece of property from her.

“This brings back a lot of unhappy memories,” she said through her tears.

Government prosecutors, attempting to portray Miller as desperate for money and allegedly tempted by a lucrative espionage offer, used Generaux’s testimony to present evidence of his financial woes.

Real Estate Problems

At Ogorodnikova’s earlier trial, Miller testified that he and his wife had no greater financial problems than any other couple trying to raise eight children on his FBI salary of about $50,000 a year.

Generaux testified that she sold a 20-acre parcel of land and a home in Bonsall, Calif., to Miller, his wife Paula, and her parents in 1976.

Generaux said that she held a note on the house and land and was to receive payments of $740 monthly. The payments later were reduced by sale of part of the property, but the Millers had problems keeping up even when the sum was $540 a month.

“At times the payments were up to date,” she said. “Then they began to be a month late, two months late, and finally, three months late.”

In 1982, she said, she began foreclosure proceedings, but the Millers paid the $3,020 they owed.

In June, 1984, Generaux said, she received a check from Miller for three months of overdue payments and the check bounced.

In addition, she said, the Millers were about three years behind in paying their property taxes, and she would receive periodic notices from San Diego County about that.