Jury Selected for Miller’s 2nd Trial on Spy Charges

A jury of 10 women and 2 men was selected Friday to hear the Los Angeles federal court retrial of former FBI Agent Richard W. Miller, who is charged with espionage.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon was told by prosecutors and defense attorneys late in the third day of jury selection that they were satisfied with the panel. Three men and three women were then chosen as alternates.

The trial is expected to last about 10 weeks, which made it difficult to assemble a jury. Some potential members conceded during questioning by attorneys that they might resent the loss of earnings or vacations if picked to sit through such a long trial.

Kenyon set 8 a.m. Tuesday for opening statements.

The first trial also lasted 10 weeks and ended in a mistrial last Nov. 6, when jurors deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction on some charges and 10 to 2 for conviction on others. At that time, the jury had been deliberating for two weeks.

Miller, 48, is the only FBI agent ever charged with espionage. He is accused of passing a confidential FBI counterintelligence manual to Svetlana Ogorodnikova, a Soviet woman and admitted spy with whom he had an affair.

He was fired in October, 1984, after 20 years with the FBI, when he admitted his relationship with Ogorodnikova. She subsequently pleaded guilty to espionage conspiracy.

During his first trial, Miller denied that he gave her any documents. He claimed that he was using her to crack a Soviet spy network. However, another agent testified that Miller confessed passing the FBI’s “Positive Intelligence Reporting Guide” to the woman in the bedroom of his Lynwood home and slipping a copy of it into her traveling bag during a trip to the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco in August, 1984.

Miller faces a possible life term if convicted.