$50 Fine, Probation for Secord : He Blasts Reagan as ‘Cowardly’

Richard V. Secord today was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay the court $50 for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal by a federal judge who said the retired Air Force major general had suffered enough.

Secord, who paid for Oliver L. North’s $13,800 home security system from proceeds of the Iran-Contra affair, told U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. that he will regret lying about it “for the rest of my life.”

“It is my judgment that there has been punishment in this case,” the judge said, and there was no need to send Secord, a West Point graduate with a checkered Pentagon intelligence career, to jail.

So far, no Iran-Contra defendant has been sentenced to jail as a result of the scandal involving the U.S. sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of some of the profits to the Nicaraguan rebels.

Robinson ordered Secord to spend two years on probation and pay a standard $50 court assessment required in all felony convictions.

Secord could have faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Secord was sentenced under a plea-bargain deal with Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh. The retired officer pleaded guilty to one felony count of lying to congressional investigators--under oath on June 10, 1987--when he claimed he was not aware of any money from the Iran arms sales being used to benefit North.

In return for the guilty plea, Secord, 56, obtained dismissal of the 11 other counts in the indictment.

Secord received leniency despite an argument from Reid Weingarten, the lawyer who was to try the case for Walsh. Weingarten told Robinson that Secord made a deliberate decision to lie to Congress and he “carefully considered his options” before doing so.

Secord provided false evidence, Weingarten said, adding: “This is the stuff of routine felonies. He is no misguided patriot.”

Secord assisted North, the fired National Security Council aide, in supplying weapons to the Contras.

North, convicted earlier in the Reagan Administration scandal, also received two years of probation and a period of inner-city community service. North is appealing his sentence but has already started performing the community work.

Secord and his partner, Albert Hakim, were middlemen in the secret arms sales to Iran. Hakim also made a plea bargain with prosecutors and has not yet been sentenced.

Secord was also involved in the secret airlift of supplies to the Contras despite a ban by Congress on such aid.

Had the case gone to trial, the government said it would prove that Secord provided North with a home security system worth $13,800 and also established a secret Swiss bank account for North containing $200,000.