2 RCA Executives Get Jail Terms in Pentagon Case

Two RCA Corp. employees who pleaded guilty to obtaining and transporting classified Pentagon budget documents were sentenced Friday to two years in prison, with all but a few months suspended.

In sentencing Ronald B. Stevens and Leonard C. Kampf, U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris said he wanted the sentences to have a deterrent effect on those who might consider similar activity.

Stevens and Kampf had pleaded guilty on Feb. 5, the same day that RCA Corp. pleaded guilty and paid $2.5 million to cover criminal and civil liabilities.

The cases stemmed from Operation Uncover, which investigated the trafficking in classified documents by major Defense Department contractors.

The documents involved summarize the Pentagon’s plan for future spending, said Michael J. Costello, head of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s Washington field office.

Stevens, a manager of marketing services at RCA’s Aerospace and Defense Division in Cherry Hill, N. J., was sentenced to two years in prison, with all but two months suspended, and 100 hours of community service. He was also placed on one year of supervised probation and fined $3,000.

Kampf, who was employed as manager of marketing information and communications in RCA’s Government Systems Division in Cherry Hill until his retirement in 1984, was sentenced to two years in prison, with all but four months suspended, and 100 hours of community service. In addition, he was placed on one year of supervised probation and fined $5,000.

“The sentencing of corporate employees to jail is a sanction which must occur if corporate America is to re-think its marketing philosophy,” Costello said. “Corporations can’t go to jail, and they have to consider the traumatic effect on their employees who may have to do hard time.”