Woman Tells of Confession From Miller

A waitress from Oregon who had a brief affair with Richard W. Miller testified Thursday that the former FBI agent confessed to her before and after his arrest on espionage charges that he had passed classified information to convicted Soviet agent Svetlana Ogorodnikova.

Marta York, a 36-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who lives in Portland, said the confession was first made during a collect phone call from Miller last October, the day he was arrested as the first FBI agent ever charged with espionage.

“He told me he was calling to warn me before I found out from the news,” York said. “He told me he was accused of selling some kind of confidential material.

“I asked him if he did or he didn’t. He paused, then he say, ‘Yes, I did only one,’ ” she continued. “I ask him if he got anything out of it. He said, ‘I thought I had a good deal.’ ”

Later, York said, Miller made additional confessions during phone conversations from his quarters at the federal prison on Terminal Island, where he has been held in isolation since his arrest.

“Yes, he called from jail,” York said. “There’s times he say he don’t done it and there’s times he say he done it. He called me so many times, I can’t remember.”

The dramatic disclosures from Miller’s former lover, who collapsed in tears in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge David Kenyon after proclaiming her continued “affection” for Miller, came as a total surprise to defense lawyers.

They pointed out that there was no hint of a confession by Miller in reports of FBI interviews with York and succeeded during cross-examination in pointing out that York had told contradictory versions of her story.

York said she first met Miller in 1970, when her name was Marta Williams and she resided in Los Angeles. She said Miller was investigating a robbery near a motel she managed and had asked her and her husband to identify some pictures of suspects. Later, she said, Miller and her husband became friends.

Her husband died last June, several years after the couple moved to Oregon with their five children, York said, adding that she sent Miller a letter to tell him of her husband’s death. She said Miller then called her in Portland last August and they “reacquainted” themselves.

“He told me he was divorced,” York said.

Miller, 48, the father of eight children, invited York to visit him in Los Angeles, and she arrived for a two-week stay last Sept. 15, the midpoint of a massive FBI investigation into Miller’s suspected espionage activities.

Not only was York initially unaware that Miller was still married and spent weekends with his family in Valley Center in northern San Diego County, she had no idea that her lover was also sexually involved with Ogorodnikova and was seeing both women clandestinely at the same time.

Went to Fair

While continuing his affair with Ogorodnikova and allegedly planning a trip to Warsaw with her to meet with Soviet intelligence officials, York’s testimony revealed that Miller managed to find time to take her to the Los Angeles County Fair and to the movies.

He also tried to borrow about $200 from her so that he could join a health club in an effort to lose weight, she said. Miller had been under fire from the FBI to slim down.

On Sept. 25, York said, Miller took her to a movie, then told her of his marital problems with his wife, Paula, and his efforts to get back into the Mormon Church after his excommunication the previous January for an adulterous relationship with another woman, whose identity has not been revealed.

“He told me he had to get his life together and behave to get back in the church,” she said. “That’s when I found out he was not divorced.”

York, who was remarried seven months after her affair with Miller, returned to Portland last Sept. 29, unaware that Miller was already undergoing an FBI interrogation about his involvement with Ogorodnikova and that FBI agents had also monitored many of her conversations with Miller and photographed them together.

Soviet Consulate

During his collect call on Oct. 2, according to York, Miller also spoke of a trip to San Francisco with Ogorodnikova, a reference to an Aug. 25 visit to the Soviet Consulate. She said Miller told her that he “had to turn in his gun and his badge to prove he was an FBI agent.”

York said she asked if Miller had been sleeping with Ogorodnikova while York was visiting him in September, and he also confessed to that.

“I told him I didn’t want to see him no more,” she said, later admitting under cross-examination: “I was hurt. My pride was hurt.”

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman, York said she first told of Miller’s confessions in a May 21 interview with Hayman.

However, when asked by Joel Levine, one of Miller’s lawyers, if she had ever discussed the confessions with FBI agents after Miller’s arrest, York said she had told FBI agents last Oct. 8 and Dec. 7 that Miller had confessed to passing one secret document to Ogorodnikova.

As Hayman and Levine bombarded her with questions and various legal objections to her testimony, York began to cry.

“I’m so confused,” she said.

Not Candid

Gradually, York changed her testimony on the question of whether she had told any FBI agents about the key details of the Oct. 2 call from Miller, recalling that she had told Hayman on May 21 that she had never told anybody else about the confession and was not “fully candid” with the FBI when first interviewed.

“At one point, I did not want to be involved,” she said. “I was afraid for my children. I didn’t want my kids to know I was in Los Angeles fooling around with somebody.”

The fifth week of the trial will conclude today with Richard T. Bretzing, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, expected to testify.