Scientist Sentenced to Halfway House in Chinese Espionage Case

A Manhattan Beach scientist convicted of passing classified information that may have aided China’s nuclear weapons program was sentenced Thursday to 12 months in a halfway house and three years’ probation.

Peter H. Lee, 58, was also ordered to pay $20,000 in fines and perform 3,000 hours of community service.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter gave Lee five years in prison--half the maximum--but suspended that sentence in lieu of a year confined to a halfway house. He said Lee--a nuclear physicist who was fired last year by TRW Space and Electronics Group--could commute to and from work when he finds another job.

In suspending Lee’s prison term, Hatter said he believed Lee did not act out of malice, but felt a message needed to be sent to other scientists.

“You cannot leave to a scientist the discretion of what should be classified,” Hatter said.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, pleaded guilty in December to charges of espionage after confessing that he had knowingly passed classified information to Chinese scientists during a visit in 1985, and also of lying to his employer, a defense contractor, about the purpose of another trip to China in 1997.

In a pre-sentencing report, the government said Lee was a pawn in a shrewd effort by the Chinese government to gather information in the United States. In contrast to Cold War-era tactics of enlisting paid spies to steal classified information, the FBI said China has been using more subtle lures like inviting prominent American scientists to give lectures there and then playing on their ego and vanity to disclose information.

In pleading for leniency, Lee told Hatter that he did not think he had been aiding the Chinese government and was deeply sorry.

“Words cannot describe the remorse I feel,” said Lee, who had sat stoically through the proceedings in a downtown federal courtroom. He said he had let “scientific enthusiasm” get the best of him and “for this mistake I have already suffered severely.”

“Please your honor. Do not put me in jail,” he said in a low, unsteady voice.

In 1985, while Lee was a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico working on government projects, he met with top scientists in China.

Prosecutors said Lee, who had a high U.S. security clearance, gave Chinese scientists important information about a tiny device called a hohlraum, used in the study of thermonuclear reaction.

“U.S. intelligence analysis indicates that the [data] provided by Dr. Lee was of significant material assistance to [China] in their nuclear weapons development program,” the Department of Energy said in a statement submitted to Hatter.

However, the technology can also be used for other purposes such as nuclear energy for the generation of electricity, and the government declassified most of the material concerning hohlraums by 1993, the statement said.

Lee, an expert in laser energy, told federal investigators that he knew the information he gave was classified but he did not think he was aiding China’s nuclear weapons program.

Lee also confessed to making false declarations in 1997 to TRW. Lee, who was working on classified research for the defense contractor, said he lied when he told TRW that he went to China for pleasure when he actually went there to give a series of technical lectures discussing his work, which he was not allowed to do under his contract. He also lied upon his return about the contacts he made in China.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jonathan S. Shapiro said it could not be determined whether the data that Lee disclosed in his last trip was classified. But a government source confirmed reports that Lee possessed information on ocean imaging technology that could be of value to China in anti-submarine warfare.

As a convicted felon, Lee can never again have security clearance to work in sensitive government projects, but he has already received job offers from private companies, according to his attorney, James D. Henderson.

Henderson told Hatter his client did not deserve prison time.

“He didn’t compromise any national security,” Henderson said. He said Lee had passed information to Chinese scientists merely to gain recognition for his work and never intended to cause any harm to his country.

“His ego got the best of him,” Henderson said.

Lee came under the scrutiny of FBI’s Foreign Counterintelligence Squad a few years ago, Shapiro said.

He said the government was investigating scientists who had traveled to China during the late 1980s, a period that U.S. intelligence believes marked great leaps in China’s nuclear weapons technology.

U.S. agents narrowed on Lee, tapped his phones and began to follow his correspondence.