Spy Whitworth May Be Owed a Cut in His Fines

Convicted spy Jerry Whitworth, sentenced to 365 years in prison, may have a small consolation: $190,000 of the $410,000 in fines against him appear to have been unauthorized.

The fines were imposed Thursday by U.S. District Judge John Vukasin for five income tax convictions that accompanied seven espionage convictions. The tax charges involved concealing and failing to report $332,000 that Whitworth was paid by John A. Walker Jr. for providing Navy code and communications secrets to Walker’s Soviet-controlled spy ring.

Vukasin fined Whitworth $100,000 for filing each of four willfully false tax returns for the years 1979 through 1982, and $10,000 for conspiring with Walker to defraud the United States.

Tax Law Changed

But the law for filing a willfully false tax return was not amended until September, 1982, to provide for its current maximum fine of $100,000. Before that, the maximum fine was $5,000.

According to the indictment against Whitworth, 47, he filed false tax returns for 1979 and 1980 in April, 1981. Since the maximum fine then was $5,000, the fines for those years apparently would have been limited to $10,000, instead of the $200,000 Vukasin levied.

The tax returns for 1981 and 1982 were filed in 1984, the indictment said. If the 1982 law increasing the maximum fine to $100,000 applies to both those returns, the penalties assessed by Vukasin were authorized.

Subject Under Study

“It appears that there may have been an inconsistency in the sentence,” Chief Assistant U.S. Atty. William McGivern said Friday. “. . . We’re studying what to do right now.”

The discrepancy does not affect Whitworth’s 365-year prison sentence.

Questioned by reporters, McGivern said the 1979 and 1980 tax counts carried maximum fines of $5,000 each, and the other two tax counts carried $100,000 fines.

“However, the amount of the fine, $410,000, was well within the total he (Vukasin) could have meted out, which we calculated to be $710,000,” McGivern said.

He said a new federal law allows $250,000 fines for certain felonies, including the espionage conspiracy and tax fraud conspiracy charges of which Whitworth was convicted.

However, it is unclear whether that law would cover the case, or, if so, whether Vukasin could increase the fines for those crimes if asked by defense lawyers to reduce the fines for the tax convictions.

Defense lawyers, who have said they will appeal the sentence, were away from their offices Friday.

The fines are separate from any action the IRS takes against Whitworth to collect back taxes. Defense lawyers say Whitworth has no money now; the prosecution had asked for fines to make sure Whitworth could not profit by selling the story of his crimes, but his lawyers insist Whitworth has no such plans.