Chinese-born engineer gets 15 years in spying for China

By Patrick J. McDonnell
Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2010

A Chinese-born aerospace engineer who had access to sensitive material while working with a pair of major defense contractors in Southern California was sentenced Monday to more than 15 years in prison for acquiring secret space shuttle data and other information for China.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney in Santa Ana imposed a 188-month prison term on Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in Orange.

Carney declared that he could not "put a price tag" on national security and sought to send a signal to China to "stop sending your spies here,"
according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Chung, who worked at Boeing's Huntington Beach plant, denied being a spy and said he was gathering documents for a book, not for espionage. His attorneys argued that much of the material was already available on the public record.

[...]