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Nuke Scientist Denied Bail
1999-12-30
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A fired weapons lab scientist has lost another bid to be freed from jail until he goes on trial for allegedly mishandling some of the nation's top nuclear secrets. U.S. District Judge James Parker rejected Wen Ho Lee's request Wednesday, referring to missing computer tapes containing classified material and citing the potential for ``enormous harm'' to the nation. A trial may be a year away. In upholding an earlier ruling, Parker said he would likely reconsider Lee's request depending on the results of another lie-detector test. Lee, 60, has pleaded innocent to 59 counts under the Atomic Energy and Espionage Acts. If convicted, the former employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory could be sentenced to life in prison. The charges allege the transfer of classified material from secure to unsecure computers and to computer tapes. Seven remain missing. The indictment does not accuse Lee of passing classified information to a foreign government. Lee has said he destroyed the tapes after losing his security clearance. He was fired in March, a month after he failed questions on a polygraph test that lab officials said asked whether he had passed information and classified codes to a foreign country. One lab official said Lee admitted he may have accidentally passed information to another country. Defense lawyers promised to appeal Wednesday's ruling. ``The government is clearly blowing things out of proportion here - trying to raise hysteria with this McCarthyistic approach,'' said Lee's son, Chung, after the judge's ruling. Chung Lee also said his father is willing to take another lie-detector test. FBI agent David Kitchen said the agency would like to perform it. The judge also urged authorities to ease the ``extreme restrictions'' imposed on Lee in jail. Since his arrest, for example, Lee's visitors have not been allowed to speak Chinese at the jail. Kitchen said a translator will be flown in for Lee's family meetings so the language may be spoken. Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Taiwan, has sued the government, claiming he has been the victim of a smear campaign accusing him of spying for China.
FBI Misled Fired Nuclear Scientist (2000-01-08)Judge Denies Wen Ho Lee Bail, Warns of `Enormous Harm' (1999-12-30)Nuke Scientist Denied Bail (1999-12-30) Judge To Consider Bail for Lee (1999-12-26)Gov't Seeks To Deny Bail for Lee (1999-12-24)
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