Alleged W.H. Spy Negotiating Plea

Suspected Cohort Indicted For Giving Classified Info To Philippines

(CBS/AP)  An FBI analyst who is being investigated for passing along classified information is negotiating a plea deal. Meanwhile, a former Filipino police official was indicted Thursday on charges of passing classified information from the FBI analyst to current and former officials in the Philippines.

The FBI is investigating whether the analyst, a former Marine, also provided classified information taken from the White House when he worked in the vice president's office, government officials say.

Federal prosecutors in Newark, New Jersey, did not seek an indictment against the analyst, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, because he is negotiating a plea, court records show.

His alleged go-between, Michael Ray Aquino, 39, living in Queens, New York, was charged with conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

The charges mirror those filed in September when Aquino and Aragoncillo were arrested. Both have been jailed in federal custody in New Jersey since their arrests.

Aquino lawyer Mark A. Berman said his client, a former deputy director of the Philippines National Police rejected, a plea deal.

"There's a fundamental difference between Aragoncillo and Aquino," Berman said. "Aquino is not an FBI agent and had no reason to know that the information the government laid out in the indictment was classified."

Philippine Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said the criminal complaint against Aragoncillo suggests the information could have been intended to destabilize the Philippine government.

"We were able to determine that he had reviewed and possibly downloaded sensitive or classified documents while working for the FBI," FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko told CBS Radio News. "Several of them were classified and were probably not in the routine cases that he would have been working."

The case now focuses on the White House, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Plante where all levels of access are controlled by security clearance.

Aragoncillo had both. He worked at the White House from 1999 to 2001 and was assigned to the vice president's office under both Al Gore and Dick Cheney.