Couple charged with trying to sell nuclear material

A physicist and his wife who once worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were arrested Friday on charges of attempting to sell “restricted data” to an undercover FBI agent posing as a top Venezuelan official trying to build an atomic bomb.

Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 75, a nationalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, and his wife, Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, appeared in federal court in Albuquerque on charges of trying “to injure the United States” by passing along classified nuclear weapons material in return for millions of dollars.

The couple worked at the laboratory over several decades, Pedro Mascheroni through much of the 1980s and his wife from 1981 until earlier this year. He was a scientist, and her duties included technical writing and editing. Both had security clearances and access to material concerning the design, manufacture and use of atomic weapons.

Federal law enforcement officials stressed that the government of Venezuela was not involved in any way.

U.S. Atty. Kenneth J. Gonzales of New Mexico said that laboratory employees must safeguard anything they learn there, even after leaving the lab. “This is absolutely necessary for our national security, and it is what the public expects,” Gonzales said.

In the 22-count indictment unsealed Friday, the Mascheronis were charged with conspiring to communicate restricted data to a foreign agent. Pedro Mascheroni also was charged with “concealing and retaining U.S. records with the intent to convert them to his own use and gain.” Marjorie Mascheroni was charged with seven counts of making false statements to investigators. If convicted, each could face life in prison.

The investigation was launched in March 2008 when Pedro Mascheroni began speaking with an undercover FBI agent “posing as a Venezuelan government official,” authorities say. Mascheroni allegedly said that he could help that country “develop a nuclear bomb within 10 years” and that Venezuela could use a secret, underground nuclear reactor to harvest and enrich plutonium, and an above-ground reactor to produce nuclear energy.

In July 2008, the agent gave Mascheroni a list of 12 questions purportedly from Venezuelan military and scientific officials.

Five months later, authorities say, Mascheroni delivered a disk to a post office box that contained a coded, 132-page document with restricted data on nuclear weapons.

The primer was allegedly written by Mascheroni and edited by his wife. He reportedly told the agent that he could provide more details later worth millions of dollars to build a bomb, and that his fee would be $793,000.

Authorities say that in June 2009, he found another list of questions in the post office box, along with $20,000 in cash, and that on his way to pick up the material and money, he told his wife that this was very dangerous but that he was involved for the money.

A month later, authorities report, he left a 39-page document answering the latest questions, and said that “just in case our relationship/alliance does not work,” he would simply say it was information available on the Internet.

richard.serrano@latimes.com