U.S. Analyst Pleads Guilty to Spying

A U.S. intelligence analyst who revealed the identities of four undercover agents to Cuban officials pleaded guilty Tuesday to espionage. She could spend 25 years in federal prison.

Ana Belen Montes, 45, was spying for Cuba from the time she started work at the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985 until her arrest on Sept. 21, prosecutors say.

By that time, she was a senior intelligence analyst and had used shortwave radio and coded pager messages to give Cuba U.S. secrets so sensitive they could not be fully described in court documents.

“Yes, those statements are true and accurate,” Montes told U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina after the charges were read.

When Urbina asked whether one reason she had agreed to plead guilty was “the fact that you committed the crime,” Montes replied, “Yes.”

Roscoe Howard Jr., U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said law enforcement officials did not know whether any of the information Montes transmitted to Cuba was shared with other countries. However, the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington heightened the need to “get her off the streets,” and influenced the timing of her arrest, he said.

Howard added that, to the government’s knowledge, Montes received only nominal payments for expenses. He would not speculate on her motivation.

The four undercover agents whose identities she revealed, Howard said, are safe.

Under the plea agreement, Montes would accept a sentence of 25 years in prison with no possibility of parole, followed by five years of supervised release. In exchange, Howard said, the government would get her full cooperation in disclosing all information she may have about criminal activity regarding herself or others with whom she may have worked. Urbina set a sentencing date for Sept. 24.