Pelton Loses Appeal on Admissibility of FBI Evidence

A former U.S. spy agency employee convicted of selling electronic surveillance secrets to Soviet agents lost an appeal Monday before a panel of three judges.

Ronald W. Pelton, 46, worked for the National Security Agency for 14 years as a technician. Shortly after he quit in 1979, he made contacts with Soviet agents to sell classified information about the agency’s electronic eavesdropping.

Pelton was convicted in June, 1986, of espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, attempted espionage and unauthorized disclosure of classified information. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 10 years.

The unanimous ruling by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said Pelton took a gamble and lost by talking with FBI agents when he was questioned about activities that took place after he left the NSA.

Pelton contended on appeal that incriminating statements he made to the FBI in a November, 1985, interview should have been excluded as involuntary.

The Soviets paid Pelton more than $35,000 over a period of years, he admitted during his U.S. District Court trial in Baltimore. A Soviet defector exposed his activities.

Pelton’s lawyer, Fred Warren Bennett, said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pelton said he talked with the FBI because agents led him to believe that he would not be prosecuted and would be employed in a counterintelligence operation. But the appeals panel said the agents “acted well within the bounds of constitutional propriety.”