An engineer in Culver City, a small town of Los Angeles Metropolis, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison after pleading guilty of selling classified information to a fake Russian spy.
Gregory Allen Justice, 49, was reportedly working for Boeing Satellite Systems before his arrest.
He expressed "regret and remorse" for his crimes after the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled to place him behind the bar because he had violated the Arms Export Control Act by selling sensitive satellite information to a "Russian spy" disguised by a FBI agent.
According to local City News Service, Justice admitted that he stole proprietary trade secrets from his employer and provided them to a person he believed to be a Russian agent who in fact was an undercover FBI employee.
The engineer received thousands of dollars in cash payments between February and July of 2016 in exchange for providing documents containing classified technical data.
Justice told an undercover investigator he was enamored with television spy thrillers such as "The Americans," and offered to take the undercover agent on a tour of his employer's production facilities where he said all military spacecraft were built.
Los Angeles Times website reported that authorities first caught wind of potential problems with Justice in November 2015, when a check of his computer revealed that he had inserted a USB device containing five folders with detailed mechanical drawings and design information for a satellite program.
When authorities searched his car, they found handwritten notes with addresses for the consulate general of Russia in San Francisco, and the Russian embassy and its office of the defense, military, air and naval attaches in Washington.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu also rejected the allegation from Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Mills against Justice saying that he had plot to kill his wife.
A video showed by DTLA TV Station revealed that Justice had asked the undercover agent during one of their meetings to supply him with Anectine, a powerful muscle relaxant that can cause cardiac arrest in overdoses.
Wu said that sometimes people fantasized about killing their significant others and did not mean they would actually follow through on the idea.
Justice also told the undercover agent that he needed money to care for his ailing wife, the City News Service said, however the bank records showed he was actually spending his money on another woman who hoodwinked him in an online relationship. She sent him photos of a European model that she falsely claimed were of herself and persuaded him to send money and gifts through the mail.
