A previous CIA agent and contract speaker for the FBI who is accused of having worked for China for at least ten years entered a guilty plea on Friday in a national court in Honolulu.
Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 72, has been in police prison since August 2020 when he was arrested. In a court filing, the U.S. Justice Department claimed in 2001 that it had” a war chest of damning information” against him, including an hourlong picture of Ma and an older sibling, both of whom were former CIA soldiers, who were providing classified information to intelligence officials with China’s Ministry of State Security.
The video shows Ma counting the$ 50, 000 received from the Chinese agents for his service, prosecutors said.
During a sting operation, he accepted thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for past espionage activities, and he told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, prosecutors said.
According to the charging documents, the information he was accused of providing included information about CIA sources and assets, international operations, secure communication practices, and operational tradecraft.
Ma admitted guilt on Friday to a charge of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government as part of an agreement with the prosecution. The deal calls for a 10- year sentence, but a judge will have the final say at Ma’s sentencing scheduled for Sept. 11. Without the deal, he faced life in prison.
Ma was born in Hong Kong, moved to Honolulu in 1968 and became a U. S. citizen in 1975. He enlisted in the CIA in 1982, took a job overseas the following year, and left in 1989. He held a top secret security clearance, according to court documents.
Ma lived and worked in Shanghai, China, before returning to Hawaii in 2001. In the FBI’s Honolulu field office, he was hired as a contract linguist in 2004, and prosecutors claim that over the course of the following six years, he had regular copying, taking pictures, and stealing secret documents. He frequently took them on trips to China, returning with thousands of dollars in cash and priceless presents, including a brand-new pair of golf clubs, according to the prosecution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson testified in court on Friday that Ma’s hiring as a part-time contract linguist was a “ruse” to keep track of his interactions with Chinese intelligence officers.
According to the plea agreement, the FBI “made the determination to theoretically hire the defendant to work at an FBI off-site location in Honolulu” because it was aware of Ma’s ties to the intelligence officers.
Chinese intelligence officers sent Ma photos of people she was interested in in 2006, according to Sorenson, and Ma persuaded the co-conspirator’s relative to let him know at least two of the identities when they were living in Hawaii.
Ma, in pleading guilty, said everything Sorenson described is true. Ma claimed that he had signed non-disclosure agreements that he knew would remain in force even after he left the CIA and that he was aware that the information he was giving to Chinese intelligence officials could harm the United States or aid a foreign country.
Ma’s former defense attorney testified to a judge in 2021 that she thought he had trouble remembering things and was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
According to a defense motion, Ma’s older brother, who was disabled for the entire duration of the disease, had Alzheimer’s ten years earlier. The brother is referred to as the” co-conspirator” in the indictment against Ma, but the motion claimed that the prosecution did n’t bring charges against him because of his Alzheimer ‘s-related incompetence.
The co- conspirator is now dead, Sorenson said in court Friday.
A judge found Ma capable last year and that she is not at risk for a significant mental illness, disorder, or defect.
Ma’s plea agreement with the prosecution also states that he will “provide more detailed information about this case during debriefings with Government representatives” and submit to polygraph exams.
According to the court document,” The defendant acknowledges and agrees that his cooperation obligation represents a lifetime commitment by the defendant to cooperate with the United States as described in this agreement.”
