Miller’s Release Weighed by Judge

A proposal that convicted Soviet spy Richard W. Miller be released from prison on $450,000 bond while awaiting a possible third espionage trial was taken under consideration Wednesday by a Los Angeles federal judge.

“The court is not so sure how it will rule,” said U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon. “I will sleep on it. Let it sink in overnight.”

The recommendation for the release of Miller, 52, a former FBI agent who was sentenced to two life prison terms plus 50 years for passing a secret FBI document to the Soviet Union, was made by Val T. Howard, an investigator for the pretrial services section of the U.S. District Court.

A U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last month reversed Miller’s 1986 espionage conviction. He remains in federal prison in Minnesota. Despite the reversal, his legal status remains that of a convicted spy, as the court’s official mandate has not been transmitted to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and filed.

Under questioning by Kenyon, Howard said interviews conducted with Miller and others had convinced him that the former agent is not a flight risk.

U.S. Official Protests

While Miller’s lawyers, Joel Levine and Stanley Greenberg, assured Kenyon that Miller has no intention of fleeing the United States if he is granted the relatively low bail, Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman strongly protested releasing Miller under any circumstances.

“It’s the position of this government that any person who has spied for the Soviet Union has an open invitation to live in that country,” Hayman said. “For $100, you could take a bus to Tijuana and then a train to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. In essence you are then in Moscow.”

Miller, assigned to the FBI’s Soviet counterintelligence squad in Los Angeles, was arrested in 1984 along with Soviet emigres Svetlana and Nikolai Ogorodnikov on charges of conspiring to pass secret FBI documents to the Soviet Union. The Ogorodnikovs pleaded guilty and are serving prison terms.

Miller, however, has maintained his innocence from the time of his arrest, saying he became involved with Svetlana Ogorodnikova in an effort to recruit her as an FBI double-agent. It took two trials before he was convicted. His first trial ended in a deadlocked jury.

The $450,000 bond figure suggested by Howard was based on the estimated value of three houses that would be put up as bail for Miller. The properties include a house in Downey owned by Miller’s sister, Maryann Deem, and a house in La Mirada owned by a brother, Dewey Miller.

The third house belongs to a resident of Maine, Warren Beatty, who was identified by Miller’s lawyer as a family friend.