Washington
CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who sold U.S. secrets to the Soviets, dies in prison at 84
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in U.S. history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Ames died Monday.
Ames, a 31-year CIA veteran, admitted being paid $2.5 million by Moscow for U.S. secrets from 1985 until his arrest in 1994. His disclosures included the identities of 10 Russian officials and one Eastern European who were spying for the United States or Great Britain, along with spy satellite operations, eavesdropping and general spy procedures. His betrayals are blamed for the executions of Western agents working behind the Iron Curtain and were a major setback to the CIA during the Cold War.
He pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors said he deprived the United States of valuable intelligence material for years.
He professed “profound shame and guilt” for “this betrayal of trust, done for the basest motives,” money to pay debts. But he downplayed the damage he caused, telling the court he did not believe he had “noticeably damaged” the United States or “noticeably aided” Moscow.
Ames was working in the Soviet/Eastern European division at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, when he first approached the KGB, according to an FBI history of the case. He continued passing secrets to the Soviets while stationed in Rome for the CIA and after returning to Washington. Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence community was frantically trying to figure out why so many agents were getting discovered by Moscow.
Ames’s wife, Rosario, pleaded guilty to lesser espionage charges of assisting his spying and was sentenced to 63 months in prison.
Wisconsin
Man gets probation for stalking justice
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man accused of sending the state Supreme Court’s chief justice intimidating emails has been sentenced to probation after prosecutors dropped a felony stalking charge.
Ryan Thornton, 37, of Racine, was initially charged in October in Dane County with stalking and misdemeanor counts of intimidating a victim and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors dismissed the stalking count on Monday in exchange for Thornton pleading guilty to the misdemeanors.
According to a criminal complaint, Thornton sent Chief Justice Jill Karofsky emails this past fall accusing her of being manipulative, telling her to “eject” herself from office and asking for her home address.
Karofsky told investigators that Thornton’s messages frightened her to the point she was afraid to leave her house to get her mail and asked police to escort her to her seat during a Milwaukee Brewers game and a Wisconsin Badgers game.
Thornton’s attorney, Anthony Jurek, said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he filed motions arguing that the charges violated Thornton’s constitutional right to free speech and that his $85,000 cash bail was excessive. Rather than argue over the motions in court, prosecutors offered the plea deal if he agreed to withdraw them, Jurek said.
Online court records show Thornton was sentenced to two years of probation, ordered to have no contact with Karofsky and barred from Dane County, home to the state Supreme Court in Madison, unless his probation agent approves a visit for a legitimate reason.
Thornton told investigators that he was upset with an attorney he hired to represent him in a 2019 strangulation case and that the Office of Lawyer Regulation, a Supreme Court office that disciplines attorneys, hasn’t investigated the lawyer. According to the complaint, Thornton called the office more than 70 times from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1 to complain about the attorney.
California
Suspects plead not guilty in New Year’s Eve bombing plot
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three of the four suspects accused of plotting to bomb several Southern California business locations on New Year’s Eve have pleaded not guilty.
Audrey Carroll, 30, and Zachary Page, 32, entered their pleas in federal court Monday. Tina Lai, 41, entered her plea in court a few days earlier. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
The fourth person, Dante Anthony-Gaffield, 24, will enter his plea Jan. 20.
The suspects, all from the Los Angeles area, were arrested Dec. 12 in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said last month. Officials said they made the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.
Essayli said Carroll created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations owned by two companies across Southern California on New Year’s Eve described as “Amazon-type” logistical centers. He did not identify the alleged targets.
A grand jury indicted the four on multiple counts of providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists and possession of unregistered firearms. Carroll and Page were also indicted on one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Officials said they are members of an offshoot of an anti-capitalist and anti-government group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.
They also are members of what one of the defendants characterized as a “radical” faction of the group that communicated using a chat called “Order of the Black Lotus,” according to the indictment.
The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.
Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs, according to the criminal complaint.
Photos included in the court documents show the desert campsite where they were arrested with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
Trial for Carroll, Page, and Lai is scheduled to begin Feb. 17. Anthony-Gaffield’s trial will be scheduled once he enters his plea.
If convicted, Carroll and Page could face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, and Anthony-Gaffield and Lai could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in federal prison.
CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who sold U.S. secrets to the Soviets, dies in prison at 84
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union and Russia in one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in U.S. history, has died in a Maryland prison. He was 84.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Ames died Monday.
Ames, a 31-year CIA veteran, admitted being paid $2.5 million by Moscow for U.S. secrets from 1985 until his arrest in 1994. His disclosures included the identities of 10 Russian officials and one Eastern European who were spying for the United States or Great Britain, along with spy satellite operations, eavesdropping and general spy procedures. His betrayals are blamed for the executions of Western agents working behind the Iron Curtain and were a major setback to the CIA during the Cold War.
He pleaded guilty without a trial to espionage and tax evasion and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors said he deprived the United States of valuable intelligence material for years.
He professed “profound shame and guilt” for “this betrayal of trust, done for the basest motives,” money to pay debts. But he downplayed the damage he caused, telling the court he did not believe he had “noticeably damaged” the United States or “noticeably aided” Moscow.
Ames was working in the Soviet/Eastern European division at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, when he first approached the KGB, according to an FBI history of the case. He continued passing secrets to the Soviets while stationed in Rome for the CIA and after returning to Washington. Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence community was frantically trying to figure out why so many agents were getting discovered by Moscow.
Ames’s wife, Rosario, pleaded guilty to lesser espionage charges of assisting his spying and was sentenced to 63 months in prison.
Wisconsin
Man gets probation for stalking justice
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man accused of sending the state Supreme Court’s chief justice intimidating emails has been sentenced to probation after prosecutors dropped a felony stalking charge.
Ryan Thornton, 37, of Racine, was initially charged in October in Dane County with stalking and misdemeanor counts of intimidating a victim and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors dismissed the stalking count on Monday in exchange for Thornton pleading guilty to the misdemeanors.
According to a criminal complaint, Thornton sent Chief Justice Jill Karofsky emails this past fall accusing her of being manipulative, telling her to “eject” herself from office and asking for her home address.
Karofsky told investigators that Thornton’s messages frightened her to the point she was afraid to leave her house to get her mail and asked police to escort her to her seat during a Milwaukee Brewers game and a Wisconsin Badgers game.
Thornton’s attorney, Anthony Jurek, said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he filed motions arguing that the charges violated Thornton’s constitutional right to free speech and that his $85,000 cash bail was excessive. Rather than argue over the motions in court, prosecutors offered the plea deal if he agreed to withdraw them, Jurek said.
Online court records show Thornton was sentenced to two years of probation, ordered to have no contact with Karofsky and barred from Dane County, home to the state Supreme Court in Madison, unless his probation agent approves a visit for a legitimate reason.
Thornton told investigators that he was upset with an attorney he hired to represent him in a 2019 strangulation case and that the Office of Lawyer Regulation, a Supreme Court office that disciplines attorneys, hasn’t investigated the lawyer. According to the complaint, Thornton called the office more than 70 times from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1 to complain about the attorney.
California
Suspects plead not guilty in New Year’s Eve bombing plot
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three of the four suspects accused of plotting to bomb several Southern California business locations on New Year’s Eve have pleaded not guilty.
Audrey Carroll, 30, and Zachary Page, 32, entered their pleas in federal court Monday. Tina Lai, 41, entered her plea in court a few days earlier. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
The fourth person, Dante Anthony-Gaffield, 24, will enter his plea Jan. 20.
The suspects, all from the Los Angeles area, were arrested Dec. 12 in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said last month. Officials said they made the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.
Essayli said Carroll created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations owned by two companies across Southern California on New Year’s Eve described as “Amazon-type” logistical centers. He did not identify the alleged targets.
A grand jury indicted the four on multiple counts of providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists and possession of unregistered firearms. Carroll and Page were also indicted on one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Officials said they are members of an offshoot of an anti-capitalist and anti-government group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.
They also are members of what one of the defendants characterized as a “radical” faction of the group that communicated using a chat called “Order of the Black Lotus,” according to the indictment.
The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.
Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs, according to the criminal complaint.
Photos included in the court documents show the desert campsite where they were arrested with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.
Trial for Carroll, Page, and Lai is scheduled to begin Feb. 17. Anthony-Gaffield’s trial will be scheduled once he enters his plea.
If convicted, Carroll and Page could face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, and Anthony-Gaffield and Lai could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in federal prison.
