Pelton Gets Three Life Terms for Spying

BALTIMORE —  A federal judge, saying Ronald William Pelton had caused “inestimable damage” to the nation by selling secrets to the Soviet Union, sentenced the former National Security Agency employee Tuesday to three life terms plus 10 years in prison.

Pelton, 45, convicted in June on four counts of conspiracy and espionage, will serve the life terms concurrently. He also was fined $100.

Pelton’s attorney, Fred Bennett, said that he would appeal the sentence to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, questioning whether Pelton’s statement to the FBI before his arrest was voluntary and the legality of wire taps used in the case.

A $24,500-a-year communications expert with a photographic memory, Pelton, broke and heavily in debt, quit the NSA in 1979 after 14 years and began spying for the Soviet Union the next year. For $35,500 and expenses, he sold top-secret information on how the United States monitors Soviet military communications around the world. He was arrested by the FBI in Maryland on Nov. 24 of last year.

‘Can’t Undo My Actions’

Before his sentencing, Pelton, a balding, diffident man dressed in an olive-colored suit, stood before U.S. District Judge Herbert F. Murray and quietly read from a statement. “My most serious regret,” he said, “is I can’t undo my actions.”

Barely audible at times, he claimed he had made peace with God, vowed to help others, “make the rest of my life count,” and implored the judge to “temper justice with mercy.” Murray responded that Pelton’s crime is “one of the most serious offenses in the United States criminal code.”

Pelton’s sales of information on how the United States collects Soviet communications data “caused inestimable harm to the United States intelligence program and compromised the safety” of American agents, Murray said.

Pelton’s estranged wife Judith, dressed in black, sat impassively in the courtroom with their children, as she had during Pelton’s trial.

After the proceedings, U.S. Atty. Breckinridge L. Willcox hailed the sentence as “significant and meaningful,” adding that Pelton’s espionage “caused irrevocable damage to this nation’s abilities to obtain foreign intelligence” and will have a “profound impact on our future capabilities.”

Parole Eligibility

Although Pelton will be eligible for parole in 10 years, Willcox said it was unlikely he would be a candidate for early release.

Bennett said he was “disappointed. I think Pelton deserved less” than a life sentence.

Bennett said he expected Pelton to continue answering questions about his espionage partly because it could help his chances of parole.

Pelton’s cooperation with prosecutors became a central issue during the sentencing hearing.

Bennett asserted that during 210 hours of questioning, Pelton had provided valuable information to authorities about the “psychological profile” of a spy and that he had submitted to testing “in that area,” thus assisting the NSA in preventing future breaches of security.

However, the government’s lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. John G. Douglass, said that Pelton volunteered little during the extensive questioning by FBI agents and therefore should not be given credit for cooperation in his sentencing.

Douglass told Judge Murray that the issue in the sentencing hearing was “the message that is to be sent” to the NSA and the armed forces.

Cites Other Spy Cases

Bennett argued that Pelton’s offenses were less serious than those in several other spy cases. Bennett’s court filings included details on 47 espionage cases from 1975 to 1986, including the one involving a spy ring headed by John A. Walker Jr.

Walker, Bennett argued, recruited family members and, in 17 years of espionage, sold so many communications secrets to the Soviet Union that it cost the Navy, from which he had retired, $100 million to repair the damage. Walker received life imprisonment under a plea agreement in which his son Michael received a 25-year sentence.

Murray listened patiently, then replied: “I find it difficult to quantify treachery to the country.”

He agreed to recommend that Pelton be incarcerated at Petersburg, Va., about 130 miles away, so his family would be able to visit him freely.