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Engineer At Boeing Admits Trying To Sell Space Secrets To Russians (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an ArsTechnica report: Gregory Allen Justice, a 49-year-old engineer living in Culver City, Calif., has pleaded guilty to charges of attempted economic espionage and attempted violation of the Export Control Act. Justice, who according to his father worked for Boeing Satellite Systems in El Segundo, Calif., was arrested last July after selling technical documents about satellite systems to someone he believed to be a Russian intelligence agent. Instead, he sold the docs to an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation employee. The sting was part of a joint operation by the FBI and the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The documents provided by Justice to the undercover agent included information on technology on the US Munitions List, meaning they were regulated by government International Trade in Arms regulations (ITAR). "In exchange for providing these materials during a series of meeting between February and July of 2016, Justice sought and received thousands of dollars in cash payments," a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. "During one meeting, Justice and the undercover agent discussed developing a relationship like one depicted on the television show 'The Americans.'"
Except, of course, this had nothing to do with the Russians. They didn't try to buy secrets. This was all FBI acting like they believed the Russian boogeymen would.
Yep, it was a USA home-made sting. And, apparently, in the legal process of sorting this out, it had to have been determined that it was not entrapment.
The article is really short on details, but I just don't see a random search of a guy's car, which turned up a scrap of paper with the Russian embassy address on it, led the FBI to set up a (complicated) and expensive sting.
It just makes me wonder if the FBI "always getting their man" would be better stated as, "We always get a man."
Hell, when I lived in DC, I had the addresses of lots of embassies in my home and car. They throw great cultural-awareness soirees on occasion, and I went to them for the free cultural experience (food, drink, an artist, dancers, whatever). So... just having the address to an embassy on you does not automagically make you a spy. (In LA, where he got busted, "Embassy Row" is along Wilshire Blvd. They're clustered.)
There is far more to this story than has been reported, so we can only guess at why, how, when, and what for the guy who plead guilty of speaking with the FBI.
HINT: Never speak to law enforcement. Ever. Google it.