RCA Fined $2.5 Million in Defense Probe

RCA Corp. pleaded guilty in federal court today to two felony charges and was fined $2.5 million as part of the continuing probe of contractors who acquired and passed along secret Defense Department plans for weapons systems.

One former and one current RCA employee also entered guilty pleas to charges of illegally conveying government property.

The government told U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris that in the years 1978-1985, RCA acquired copies of a wide range of Department of Defense documents dealing with program objectives, internal decisions and budget estimates.

“Both counts of the information to which RCA plead guilty concerned RCA’s unauthorized acquisition of secret editions of the Department of Defense’s five-year defense program,” said the U.S. attorney’s office.

One count charged that RCA, through former employee Leonard Kampf, gave others within the company a copy of the five-year program for 1985. The other count made a similar charge for 1986, involving Ronald Stevens.

Stevens, 49, manager of marketing services at RCA’s Aerospace and Defense Division at Cherry Hill, N.J., and Kampf, 69, former manager of marketing information and communications in Cherry Hill, face possible sentences of up to 10 years in prison.