STATE - Bail Ordered for Richard Miller, Ex-FBI Man Awaiting Spy Retrial

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered that bail be set for Richard W. Miller, the ex-FBI agent whose espionage conviction was reversed but who has remained in prison pending retrial.

The appellate court reversed a detention order issued by U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon in Los Angeles after Miller’s conviction was reversed.

“The government has failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that (Miller) constitutes a flight risk,” the court said.

The order, issued by Circuit Judges Dorothy W. Nelson, Stephen Reinhardt and Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, returned the case to Kenyon to impose “appropriate release conditions.”

Miller, the only FBI agent convicted of espionage, has been imprisoned for five years. The 20-year FBI veteran was convicted of delivering secret U.S. documents to his lover, Svetlana Ogorodnikov, a Russian emigre. The 9th Circuit reversed the conviction in April on grounds that Kenyon had erred in admitting lie detector evidence during the 1985-86 trial. The appellate court ordered a new trial for Miller.