Jurors Have Testimony of Three Witnesses in Trial of Miller Reread

On the fifth day of jury deliberations in the Richard W. Miller spy trial, a Los Angeles federal judge Thursday reluctantly granted a request by jurors to have the entire testimony of three witnesses read back to them.

The three include defense witness Armand L. Mauss, an expert on the Mormon religion, and two key government witnesses--FBI Agent Gary G. Auer, Miller’s boss on the Soviet counterintelligence squad, and former Agent John Hunt, who had attempted to recruit convicted Soviet spy Svetlana Ogorodnikova for the FBI two years before her first meetings with Miller.

The jurors gave U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon no indication of their reasons for wanting to rehear the testimony.

Never Know What People Think

Kenyon, shaking his head after being told by court stenographer Kathleen Haaland that it would take at least two days to read the requested material to the jurors, said he could not recall a case in which jurors had asked for so much testimony to be read back to them.

“You just never know what people are thinking, but I don’t know why people need volumes and reams read back to them,” Kenyon said.

While the judge moved to a different courtroom to preside over another case, U.S. Magistrate Joseph Reichmann was called in to preside over the proceedings as Haaland began reading the Oct. 1 testimony of Mauss, a sociologist qualified as an expert on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The thrust of Mauss’ testimony involved a Sept. 29, 1984, spiritual lecture to Miller, an excommunicated Mormon, by Richard T. Bretzing, the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office and a Mormon bishop.

Mauss testified that such a lecture would have had a strong impact on the accused spy, who was arrested for espionage three days later after admitting passing secret FBI documents to Ogorodnikova.

Hunt, who testified over a three-day period in August, said he had been attempting to recruit Ogorodnikova as an FBI informant in 1982 but gave up because he felt her loyalties were questionable and she was not reliable.

Accused by Ogorodnikova of having a sexual affair with her, Hunt denied the allegations on the stand. He also denied defense claims that he had been trying to use Ogorodnikova to establish a double agent--or “dangle” operation--against the Soviet KGB similar to the plan Miller claimed to have been trying in 1984.

“Why wouldn’t an FBI agent be used in a dangle operation?” U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner asked Hunt at the end of his testimony Aug. 14.

Establishing Credibility

“Because, in order to establish his credibility, he would have to give up classified information and documents, which we would not do,” the retired counterintelligence agent responded.

Auer, Miller’s supervisor in the FBI’s Los Angeles office, had given Miller a rating of “minimally acceptable” as an agent and removed him from his usual counterintelligence duties late in 1983. The agent testified that he ordered Miller on May 24, 1984, to have no further contact with Ogorodnikova after an initial meeting between the two and to let him know if she attempted to contact Miller again.

The witness conceded, however, that he had considered reopening the Ogorodnikova file to Miller in late May, 1984, saying that he thought it might be a way of ending Ogorodnikova’s “harassment” of Hunt.

Auer said Hunt, who was regarded as a senior member of the Soviet squad, recommended not opening the file, and Auer gave the matter no further consideration.

Miller, Ogorodnikova and her husband, Nikolai, were arrested on espionage charges Oct. 2, 1984. The Ogorodnikovs have already pleaded guilty to espionage conspiracy and are serving prison sentences.