A FORMER US State Department official has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in a conspiracy to provide classified data to Cuba.
The Justice Department said the 73-year-old would also not be granted an opportunity for parole.
His wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, who was also charged in the espionage case, was sentenced to 81 months in prison.
The couple pleaded guilty last year after their June 2009 arrest to charges in connected with “a nearly 30-year conspiracy to provide highly classified US national defence information to the Republic of Cuba,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Known as “Agent 202,” Myers pleaded guilty last November to a three-count complaint charging him with conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud.
His wife, 72, known as “Agent 123” and “Agent E-634,” pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to gather and transmit national defence information.
They also agreed to forfeit 1.7 million dollars from the sale of their apartment and other goods.
“For nearly 30 years, this couple proudly committed espionage on behalf of a long-standing foreign adversary. Today, they are being held accountable for their actions,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security David Kris.
“Their sentences should serve as a clear warning to others who would willingly compromise our nation’s most sensitive classified information.”
Myers began working at the State Department in 1977 as a contract instructor at the agency’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Virginia.
His former bosses decried his crimes.
“We believe that in this case of Kendall Myers, the severe punishment was warranted by the nature of his crime,” said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.
“This was a serious breach of national security, and by committing acts of espionage he grievously violated the confidence placed in him by the Department of State and the American people.”
He briefly left Washington but then returned and resumed his work with the institute. From 1988 to 1999, he performed work for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in addition to his FSI duties.
He later worked as an intelligence analyst specializing on European matters and had daily access to classified information. He received a “top secret” security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, received access to “sensitive compartmental information,” according to US officials.
Prosecutors say the couple was recruited by Cuban intelligence agents who visited them in 1979 in South Dakota.
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