Chinese-Born Man Guilty of Economic Spying

Former Boeing Engineer Stole Information on Space Shuttle, Booster Rocket

(AP)  A Chinese-born engineer was convicted Thursday of stealing trade secrets critical to the U.S. space program in the nation's first economic espionage trial.

A federal judge found former Boeing Co. engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung guilty of six counts of economic espionage and other charges for taking 300,000 pages of sensitive documents that included information about the U.S. space shuttle and a booster rocket.

"Mr. Chung has been an agent of the People's Republic of China for over 30 years," U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said while issuing his ruling.

Federal prosecutors accused the 73-year-old stress analyst of using his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International to steal the documents. They said investigators found papers stacked throughout Chung's house that included sensitive information about a fueling system for a booster rocket - documents that Boeing employees were ordered to lock away at the close of work each day. They said Boeing invested $50 million in the technology over a five-year period.

The judge convicted Chung of six counts of economic espionage, one count of acting as a foreign agent, one count of conspiracy, and one count of lying to federal agent. He was acquitted of obstruction of justice.

Chung opted for a non-jury trial that ended June 24. During the three-week trial, defense attorneys said Chung was a "pack rat" who hoarded documents at his house but insisted he was not a spy.

They said Chung may have violated Boeing policy by bringing the papers home, but he didn't break any laws and the U.S. government couldn't prove he had given any of the information to China.

Attorneys and prosecutors were not immediately available for comment after the verdict.

The Economic Espionage Act was passed in 1996 to help the government crack down on the theft of information from private companies that contract with the government to develop U.S. space and military technologies.

The legislation became a priority in the mid-1990s when the United States realized China and other countries were targeting private businesses as part of their spy strategy.

Since then, six economic espionage cases have settled before trial. Another is set for trial in U.S. District Court in San Jose this year.

Chung worked for Rockwell International until it was bought by Boeing in 1996. He stayed with the Chicago-based company until he was laid off in 2002. After the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003, Chung was brought back as a consultant. He was fired when the FBI began its investigation in 2006.

The government believes Chung began spying for the Chinese in the late 1970s, a few years after he became a naturalized U.S. citizen and was hired by Rockwell.

Prosecutors said they discovered Chung's activities while investigating another suspected Chinese spy, Chi Mak. Mak was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

Mak was not charged under the Economic Espionage Act.

[blog_fever2]

They are a little late... All the info he could have gathered over the years.... wow!

[geewheeez]

Oh please, he got caught...I am a minority myself, my loyalty is toward this country despite the color of my skin...my opinion is he has committed Treason. But on the other hand, if you think US is innocent of all espionage, then think again, I am sure we have spies in China and other parts of the world doing this as well...the only difference is who will get caught first.

[Questionews]

You have to wonder if it had been an American stealing secrets & the Chinese caught him on their soil whether there would even be a trial before they took him out & put one between the eyes.

[geminispyder-2009]

by rushlimpdrug July 16, 2009 2:25 PM EDT

"Yeah, and lets bring more of these great minds from
foreign lands, cause Americans don't want these jobs. Right? "

---------

As far as engineering is concerned, it's more like: because most Americans can't do these jobs.

[MiddleClassWorker]

I'm all for a life sentence, but death? Come on, it's not like he started an unjustified war in Iraq that led to the deaths of 10s of thousands of people.

[Illuminated1]

Every spy should have their heads cut off in public and placed on a pike for public scrutiny as a reminder that some things are too important and come at too high a price.

[geewheeez]

Do we say the same for CIA???

[pubsrtoast]

What a fine and honorable people, we should move all of our manufacturing to China so they can steal er "borrow" these secrets more efficiently.

[anti-global2]

They should kill this guy. If it were fro stealing technology China would still be a third world country. THey suck and I hope their whole economy implodes.

[geewheeez]

please...you think we do not have spies in china working to steal info for us, think again, we have the biggest spy network in the whole world, think about the budget of the CIA. ITS WHOM GET CAUGHT FIRST. In this case, they got caught.

[rushlimpdrug]

Hang his butt.

Yeah, and lets bring more of these great minds from
foreign lands, cause Americans don't want these jobs. Right?

Americans have been and continue to loose jobs to foreigners
in record numbers all because the blue-bloods have to continue
to keep showing record profits.

[geewheeez]

well he is an engineer, not a blue collar worker. We lose jobs to foreigners because we American are too high up in being a janitor or a cherry picker...we only lose jobs to jobs we do not want, so I would not blame foreigners for our jobs...if you want to have a good job, my suggestion is get an education.

[quickly101]

Off to the slammer and throw away the key.

[tincup356]

Meanwhile , No One in Washington will take responsibility for the economic crash, however, early indicators reveal that the whole mess was of BOTH parties making by the way of 50 years of lobby tainted legislation that allowed it ALL to happen. The remedy to the situation cannot EVER be achieved when the same crooks are still running the show. When one steps back and looks at the performance of the government as a whole ,,,they are miserable failures,,,,,,,what the government is doing with corporate America, amounts to conspiracy to defraud the American people,,,,AKA in this case ,,,,TREASON.