Computer Whiz Sentenced in Scheme to Help Soviets

SAN JOSE — A federal judge Friday sentenced a Silicon Valley computer whiz to six years in prison for his part in a scheme to sell sensitive supercomputer designs to the Soviet Union for $4 million.

Kevin E. Anderson, a former software engineer, calmly heard the judge pronounce sentence after he had made an emotional plea for leniency. “I couldn’t possibly feel more awful about what I allowed myself to become involved in,” he said. “I’m absolutely committed to making amends to society in any way I possibly can.”

The Fremont computer expert pleaded guilty May 26 to charges of conspiring to violate export laws and wire fraud, in exchange for an agreement by prosecutors to drop about a dozen other charges against him.

‘Sheer Piracy’

He asked Friday that he be allowed to develop computer programs to help the U.S. marshal’s service track down fugitives, but U.S. District Judge William A. Ingram did not respond to that request.

Ingram said, “There is no set of circumstances that can give license for piracy and this was sheer piracy.”

Anderson, who worked at Synthesized Computer Systems Inc. in Santa Clara, could have received up to 15 years in prison. The U.S. attorney’s office had recommended a 12-year sentence.

With the help of a friend, Ivan-Pierre Batinic, a software engineer at Sunnyvale-based Saxpy Computer Corp., Anderson obtained designs for the MATRIX 1 supercomputer.

Federal officials said the Saxpy computer can process 1 billion bits of information per second and could have helped the Soviets develop “Star Wars” technology. Ingram said Friday that the national security implications of the designs were not clear.

Alleged Mastermind Caught

Authorities have said the mastermind of the plot was Charles McVey, a former Anaheim aerospace entrepreneur who fled the country after his 1983 indictment on separate charges of selling millions of dollars worth of sensitive satellite technology and other equipment to the Soviet Union. McVey was arrested last August in Vancouver, Canada, and he was ordered extradited earlier this month.

Anderson and Batinic, whose brother Stevan was also charged in the case, were stopped at the border at Vancouver last August carrying $10,000 in $100 bills that were traced to McVey.

The Batinic brothers are scheduled to go on trial in November.

Last October, Anderson boasted to a former girlfriend, who turned out to be an FBI informant, that he had met in Moscow several times with high-ranking Soviet officials who were eager to obtain designs to the machine. He told her he planned to work full time on Malta building a supercomputer and teaching the Soviets how to use it.