LOS ANGELES — A U.S. Navy sailor charged with offering delicate navy info to China pleaded responsible in Los Angeles on Tuesday to conspiring with a overseas intelligence officer and receiving a bribe, federal prosecutors mentioned.
Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, initially pleaded not responsible when he was charged Aug. 4. The Justice Division alleges that Zhao, primarily based at Naval Base Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, conspired to gather almost $15,000 in bribes from a Chinese language intelligence officer in trade for info, photographs and movies of involving Navy workout routines, operations and amenities.
The knowledge included plans for a large-scale U.S. navy train within the Indo-Pacific area, which detailed the situation and timing of naval power actions, prosecutors mentioned. The Chinese language officer informed Zhao the data was wanted for maritime financial analysis to tell funding choices, in line with the indictment.
Zhao, who additionally glided by the title Thomas Zhao and held a U.S. safety clearance, “admitted he engaged in a corrupt scheme to gather and transmit delicate U.S. navy info to the intelligence officer in violation of his official duties,” the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace mentioned in a information launch Tuesday.
Zhao, of Monterey Park, California, faces a statutory most penalty of 20 years in federal jail. He has been in custody since his arrest on Aug. 3.
Zhao was charged on the identical day as one other California-based Navy sailor who’s accused of comparable crimes. However they’re separate circumstances, and federal officers have not mentioned if the 2 have been courted or paid by the identical Chinese language intelligence officer as half of a bigger scheme.
Jinchao Wei, a 22-year-old assigned to the San Diego-based USS Essex, is charged with offering detailed info on the weapons techniques and plane aboard the Essex and different amphibious assault ships that act as small plane carriers. He pleaded not responsible in federal courtroom in San Diego.
Final week, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer was charged in Seattle with making an attempt to supply categorized protection info to the Chinese language safety companies throughout the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sgt. Joseph Daniel Schmidt, 29, was arrested Oct. 6 at San Francisco Worldwide Airport as he arrived from Hong Kong, the place he had been dwelling since March 2020, the Justice Division mentioned.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with retention and tried supply of nationwide protection info. U.S. District Courtroom information in Seattle didn’t but record an lawyer representing Schmidt on the costs, and neither the U.S. lawyer’s workplace nor the federal public defender’s workplace had details about whether or not he had a lawyer.
An FBI declaration filed within the case quoted Schmidt as telling his sister in an e-mail that he left the U.S. as a result of he disagreed with unspecified elements of American coverage.
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