Marine Guilty in Spying Case : Court-martial: Corporal gets 15 years in prison after being convicted of attempted espionage for the Soviets.

A Marine corporal was convicted here Friday of attempted espionage and other crimes in what the government alleges was a wayward plot to sell military secrets to the Soviet Union.

Cpl. Charles Anzalone was sentenced to 15 years in prison, a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank to private and loss of pay after a four-day general court-martial and his mother’s tearful plea for mercy.

Anzalone, who had been a wireman at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz., was found guilty of calling the Soviet Embassy in Washington last November to offer himself as a spy under the pretext of asking about a college scholarship.

His overture was discovered by the FBI, which had Special Agent Jan Zawitkowski pose as a KGB intelligence officer to contact Anzalone. During their association, Anzalone passed two technical manuals about cryptographic equipment, a security badge and guard schedules.

“Cpl. Anzalone was a traitor,” the government’s attorney, Marine Lt. Col. C. A. Ryan, said during closing statements Friday.

During a government videotaped meeting with Zawitkowski in a Yuma hotel room, Anzalone said he hated capitalism and the American government, professing a grudge against the nation’s treatment of American Indians. He is part Mohawk.

In later rebuttal testimony, he said he only condemned the United States to win Zawitkowski’s favor and the college scholarship. He said his offer to repay the scholarship by eventually getting a government job and spying for the Soviets was just a lie to get money.

The government contended that Anzalone was badly in debt and acted purely for money.

“He wanted to be the next despicable person to ingratiate himself into the American system and turn on it,” Ryan said.

But Marine Capt. Paul McBride, Anzalone’s defense attorney, said his client naively but genuinely contacted the embassy about a possible scholarship and was entrapped by the FBI and pressured by Zawitkowski to give information.

In his summation, McBride said: “Agent Zawitkowski went into (conversations) convinced in his mind Cpl. Anzalone was a spy. He simply hammered away at him until he got what he wanted.”

Anzalone, a tall 24-year-old from Jamestown, N. Y., appealed to the military judge, Marine Col. Edwin Welch, for leniency, saying he wanted to make up to his family for the suffering he caused them and noting his decision to “pursue the ministry.”

“I want to preach God’s word and lead a quiet life,” he said. “I want to be the husband my wife deserves, the father my son deserves, the son my parents deserve.”

Anzalone was also convicted of adultery with the wife of another Marine who was deployed to the Persian Gulf while his own wife, Candy, was pregnant and in New York tending to her dying father.

“I feel like my crime is against my wife, not against the Marine Corps,” Anzalone said.

The young Marine’s mother, Barbara Sharp, took the stand in an emotional appeal for mercy. She wept as she told the judge: “I do believe my son never intended to betray his country or become a spy.”

But prosecutor Ryan insisted that Anzalone should receive the maximum sentence of life in prison to show that espionage would be “dealt with in the most severe fashion.”

Welch deliberated and returned with a verdict, saying that although he regrets the effects on Anzalone’s family, “I must also consider these very serious offenses.”

Anzalone was convicted of attempted conspiracy to commit espionage, attempted espionage, failure to report contact with the Soviet Embassy, disclosing sensitive information without proper authority and unlawful use of the mail. He was also convicted of possession and use of marijuana.