The State - News from Oct. 23, 1987

A federal appeals court upheld the guilty plea of a Russian immigrant to a charge of conspiring with former FBI agent Richard Miller to pass military secrets to the Soviet Union. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3 to 0 that Nikolai Ogorodnikov, 54, of Los Angeles had made a voluntary and factually based admission of guilt in a mid-trial plea-bargain. Ogorodnikov was sentenced to eight years in prison, and his wife, Svetlana Ogorodnikova, who also pleaded guilty after 10 weeks of their joint trial, was given 18 years for conspiracy to commit espionage with Miller. Miller, the first FBI agent ever charged with espionage, was convicted in 1985 of passing classified documents to the Soviet Union in exchange for promises of $65,000 in cash and gold.