Aragoncillo Pleads Guilty to Espionage

Leandro Aragoncillo, a former Marine who worked at times under two administrations in the Office of the Vice President of the United States was sentenced July 18, to 10 years in prison for espionage and other charges for taking and transferring classified information to senior political and government officials of the Philippines in an attempt to destabilize and overthrow that country's government, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Kenneth L. Wainstein and U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.^[1]

U.S. District Judge William H. Walls sentenced Aragoncillo, for his guilty pleas to espionage charges on May 4, 2006.^[2] There is no parole in the federal system, and Aragoncillo can be expected to serve nearly the entire sentence except for potential good-inmate credits. Judge Walls also fined Aragoncillo $40,000.^[3]

At his plea hearing last year, Aragoncillo admitted that he regularly transferred to his Philippine contacts national security documents classified as Secret, and that the information he transferred could be used to injure the United States or be advantageous to a foreign nation.^[4]

Aragoncillo admitted that some of the classified information he removed from of the Office of the Vice President between approximately October 2000 and February 2002 included information marked Top Secret that related to terrorist threats to United States government interests in the Philippines.^[5]

Aragoncillo pleaded guilty to four national security crimes: Conspiracy to Transmit National Defense Information; Transmission of National Defense Information; Unlawful Retention of National Defense Information; and Unlawful Use of a Government Computer.^[6]

Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
Is covered under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) where in it states that whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it. Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

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^[1] US Dep’t Justice Press Release, Former Marine and FBI Analyst Sentenced to 10 Years for Transferring Classified Information to Assist in Overthrow of Philippine Government, PRNewswire-USNewswire, July 18, 2007, available at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/July/07_nsd_512.html (last visited July 20, 2007); see also http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=42638 (last visited July 20, 2007).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.