Lee Spends More Time Confined--but at Least It’s at Home

ALBUQUERQUE — Wen Ho Lee spent his first full day of freedom as a prisoner in his own house Thursday as camera crews and reporters camped outside in hopes of a glimpse of the meek scientist who has been transformed from a reputed master spy to a national symbol of government misconduct.

Lee stayed inside his modest home in White Rock, N.M., where he enjoyed his first melon, took his first bath and cooked his first meal for his family since his arrest and incarceration in December.

“He enjoyed his first cantaloupe in nine months,” Lee’s 26-year-old daughter, Alberta, said with a laugh. “He took his first bath. He’s a bath person. In jail, he had to take showers. And he’s spent time alone with my mom. . . . Right now, we’re all just trying to recoup.”

Lee’s son, Chung, 28, said that the family hopes to ease Lee back into normal life. “He’s a great landscaper, so we’ll try to get him busy on that. And we’ll definitely try to get him fishing.”

After a sensational 18-month case that often seemed more like David vs. Goliath than U.S. vs. Wen Ho Lee, the 60-year-old scientist was freed Wednesday after pleading guilty to a single count of mishandling classified information at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The government dropped all 58 other charges in a plea bargain agreement.

But U.S. District Judge James A. Parker closed the final court hearing by delivering a stinging rebuke to the officials of the executive branch of government for its handling of the case. “They have embarrassed this entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it,” he said.

Moments later, Lee was led into a conference room for a private meeting with his wife, Sylvia, and two children. Their lawyers, still giddy from the judge’s stunning comments, closed the door and left them alone.

“We thought they should have a little bit of time to touch each other, which they weren’t allowed to do for nine months,” said Nancy Hollander, one of Lee’s lawyers. “Just think about that for a minute.”

Friends and lawyers said that Lee has greeted his release with mixed emotions--unbridled joy tinged with a touch of bitterness about his long ordeal in what the judge called “demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions.”

“He’s human like all of us,” said one friend, who spoke to Lee at length but asked not to be identified. “There is some bitterness there, but it’s not the kind that will affect the rest of his life. There are people who would be obsessed with getting even. He is a very serene guy, and he’s going to move on with his life. He’s not going to brood about this.”

Another friend added: “I saw no anger or self-pity. But I’m sure he thinks he got a rotten deal. He said he lost nine months of his life.”

Lee told friends that he plans to finish writing a math book he began while in jail. He also hopes to write scientific articles and other technical books in his area of expertise, fluid dynamics. The arcane field has numerous uses in industry and other endeavors, as well as in the computer modeling of nuclear weapons.

Lee went home Wednesday night to a boisterous neighborhood celebration, where he was welcomed by fellow Los Alamos veterans and other well-wishers as a conquering hero rather than a convicted felon.

More than 100 friends and supporters waved U.S. flags and “welcome home” signs, cheered loudly and sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” A neighbor’s Ping-Pong table groaned with Chinese food donated by an Albuquerque restaurant, platters of cold cuts and fruit. Lee autographed T-shirts and paper plates as children swarmed around. He chatted with friends until 9 p.m.

“He talked to me about numerical fluid dynamics and the work he did in jail on two-phase fluid flow,” said Bob Clark, a friend and--like Lee--a former nuclear weapon code developer at Los Alamos. “He was back in full scientific mode.”

One neighborhood sign, decorated with freshly picked sunflowers, said: “Welcome home to your town, your garden and Mozart.” Another declared simply, “Go fish.”

“The last nine months haven’t been easy for me, but I think I survived,” said Lee, who had shed his courtroom suit for a blue polo shirt and slacks. For most of the last nine months, Lee wore a jail-issued orange jumpsuit.

Lee’s lawyers said Thursday that his priority--after fishing--will be to prepare for what is expected to be a grueling series of sessions with FBI and other investigators starting Sept. 26.

Under the plea agreement, Lee will submit to debriefings for up to six hours a day for 10 days over a three-week period to try to satisfy government concerns about why he copied classified data to seven portable computer tapes and precisely how, when and where he disposed of them. He also must make himself available for additional questions for one year.

“Obviously, he and we take that very seriously,” said John Cline, one of Lee’s lawyers. “He wants to be as complete and accurate as he can be.”

The government considers the fate of those tapes crucial, since they contain data about America’s nuclear weapon development and design. How useful that data would be to a hostile power is a matter of sharp dispute among scientists and weapon experts.

Lee also must deal with legal bills that could exceed $1 million. His Los Angeles lawyer, Mark Holscher of O’Melveny & Myers, took the case in March 1999 and has worked pro bono. His Albuquerque counsel, Cline and Nancy Hollander, signed on after Lee’s indictment in December. Their small firm, Freedman Boyd & Daniels, is charging Lee at a sharply discounted rate.

So far, a defense fund has raised about $500,000, according to Cecilia Chang, a family friend. She sobbed uncontrollably after Lee’s release but said that the support group she created on Lee’s behalf would not stop now.

“We’re going to educate the American people,” she said. “How did we ever get into this mess? There was something wrong with the system that let this case go this far.”

Lee also intends to pursue a civil lawsuit he filed last year against the Justice Department, the Energy Department and the FBI for allegedly violating his privacy by leaking damaging information about him and his wife to the media. The suit was filed in Washington, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson had delayed the case until the criminal case in New Mexico was complete.

“We will ask him to lift the stay and will pursue the privacy lawsuit,” said Brian A. Sun of the Los Angeles firm of O’Neill, Lysaght & Sun. He also is working pro bono for Lee.

Lee probably has no other legal remedies available against the government, according to Bennett Gershman, an expert on prosecutorial misconduct and a law professor at Pace University in New York.

“This case is unusual, but it’s not the first time an innocent person has been railroaded,” Gershman said.

He said that he was “dumbfounded” to read Parker’s tongue-lashing from the bench to the “top leadership” of the Justice Department, the Energy Department and the FBI.

“It’s extraordinary for the federal judiciary to level such criticism at the executive branch,” he said. “You see this very, very infrequently. This was a very courageous judge.”