Court Grants Miller Bail; Release Assured : Espionage: The ex-FBI agent held in a Soviet spying case is expected to be freed soon pending his third trial.

A Los Angeles federal court judge Monday granted bail, and eventual freedom, to Richard W. Miller, the former FBI agent whose conviction for spying for the Soviet Union was overturned last April.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon ordered Miller released from a Minnesota prison on $337,757 bond pending his third trial.

Miller, who was not present for the hearing, is expected to return to Los Angeles by the weekend and will appear in court next Monday for the setting of a new trial date.

Stanley Greenberg, one of Miller’s defense attorneys, said the 52-year-old former FBI agent was still being held in a federal medium-security prison in Rochester. Miller will not be released until he signs bail papers, a process that could take several days, the lawyer said.

“We’re very pleased he will be getting out,” Greenberg said. “A little later than we would have liked, but better late than never.”

Miller’s release was all but guaranteed Oct. 13, when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Kenyon to hold a bail hearing for the former FBI agent. The appeals court ruled that federal prosecutors had “failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence” that Miller was a flight risk and should be denied bail.

Last April, the appeals court set in motion Miller’s release when it overturned his 1986 espionage conviction. It was the first time a major U.S. spying conviction had been overturned since World War II.

Miller was found guilty by a federal court jury in Los Angeles in June, 1986, after a four-month trial. An earlier three-month trial in 1985 ended when jurors were unable to come to a verdict after three weeks of deliberations.

Accused of passing FBI secrets to the Soviet KGB during an adulterous affair with Soviet emigre Svetlana Ogorodnikova, Miller had originally been sentenced by Kenyon to two life terms plus 50 years in prison.

Miller claimed that he had become involved with the Soviet woman as part of a secret effort to infiltrate the KGB.

Prosecutors argued that he passed on intelligence information to Ogorodnikova in return for sex, $15,000 in cash, $50,000 in gold and a Burberry trench coat.

Neither prosecutors nor FBI officials would comment Monday when asked if federal authorities had plans for keeping Miller under surveillance once he is freed.

“I don’t think it would be productive to say whether the government intends to take its own additional steps,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Russell Hayman, the prosecutor.

Hayman had little reaction to Kenyon’s decision, noting only that “we opposed bail in the first instance and all along.”

During Monday’s hearing, Hayman urged Kenyon to allow him to interview several friends and relatives of Miller who had agreed to put up their property to meet his bond.

“It is relevant for the government to hear their contact with Mr. Miller,” Hayman said. “They must understand what the consequences (of posting bail) are so they will have a motive to stay in frequent contact with Mr. Miller.”

But after hearing from a court pretrial services official, who said that Miller’s friends and relatives were already aware of those consequences, Kenyon ordered Miller’s release.

Afterward, Miller’s sister, Maryann Deem, said she had no fear of losing her home if Miller fled the country.

“I have no concerns,” said the Downey resident, who put up her home as partial collateral for Miller’s bond. “It is my dwelling.”

Miller’s brother, Dewey, who lives in the Los Angeles area, and a family friend from Maine are also putting up their homes to help meet the former FBI agent’s bail, Greenberg said.

According to the defense lawyer, Miller will live in the Rampart section of Los Angeles in an apartment rented by Albert Sayres, a private investigator who was once Miller’s supervisor in the FBI.

Sayres, who called Miller a “God-fearing, decent man,” said he plans to hire the former FBI agent to “answer the phones and do a little legwork for me.”

When asked, however, if Miller would be working as a private investigator, Greenberg said:

“Let’s not make him from James Bond into Nick Charles (the fictional ‘Thin Man’ detective).”